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March 25, 2020 As U.S. Struggles with Coronavirus, Moscow Probes American Defenses As the Coronavirus crisis escalated earlier this month in the United States, Moscow repeatedly sent Tu-142 long-range reconnaissance aircraft to probe America’s homeland defenses. The incursions into... March 24, 2020 North Korea Conducts Third Projectile Launch in 2020 North Korea launched two short-range projectiles and conducted a live-fire artillery competition late last week as the rest of the world, and likely North Korea itself, confronts the coronavirus pandemic.... March 20, 2020 UAE Continues to Serve as Hub for Iranian Sanctions Evasion The Treasury Department imposed sanctions yesterday on five companies based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for their role in facilitating petroleum and petrochemical sales by the clerical regime in Iran.... March 19, 2020 U.S. Court Exposes Turkey’s Role in Iran’s and Venezuela’s Sanctions Evasion Schemes – Again A Manhattan federal jury on Monday convicted Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, the Iranian owner of the now-defunct Pilatus Bank of Malta, of evading U.S. sanctions against Iran by conspiring to transfer payments... March 19, 2020 New Sanctions Against Iranian Scientists Underscore Importance of IAEA Investigation in Iran The Department of Commerce on Tuesday added five Iranian scientists to its Entity List, which consists of persons prohibited from acquiring sensitive U.S. items, such as those with dual uses in nuclear,... March 18, 2020 Competing Crises: A Failed ROK-U.S. Burden Sharing Agreement and the Coronavirus in North Korea American and South Korean negotiators are meeting this week in Los Angeles to continue negotiations on the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) for a fair and equitable cost-sharing arrangement for U.S. forces... March 18, 2020 As Coronavirus Hinders the IAEA, Who Will Monitor Iran’s Nuclear Program? While the Iranian regime continues to call for sanctions relief in response to the coronavirus crisis, the regime appears rather content with the pandemic’s debilitating impact on the International Atomic... March 17, 2020 Turkish Government Responsible for Torture, Arbitrary Killings, and Disappearances In its annual human rights report, released on March 11, the State Department documents egregious violations by the Turkish government, including arbitrary killings, suspicious deaths of persons in custody,... March 12, 2020 State Department Report Documents Iran’s Systematic Human Rights Violations The regime in Tehran commits abuse “as a matter of government policy,” with impunity for perpetrators “throughout all levels of the government and security forces,” according to an annual review... March 10, 2020 Trade Data Shows Sanctions Have Little Impact on Iranian Pharma Imports During the first full year after the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions, total EU exports to Iran fell by nearly half, while pharmaceutical exports fell by just over 5 percent. Despite assertions that U.S.... March 4, 2020 Iran Uses the JCPOA as Pretext to Block Access to UN Nuclear Inspectors The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report on Tuesday rebuking Iran for withholding access to two sites of concern and for failing to answer questions about those two sites and one other.... March 4, 2020 U.S. Sanctions and Indicts Chinese Enablers of North Korean Cyber Theft The U.S. government sanctioned and indicted two Chinese nationals on March 2 for helping North Korea launder the proceeds of its cybertheft operations. In its indictment, the Justice Department (DOJ) showed... March 3, 2020 Senators Call for U.S.-Israel Operations-Technology Working Group Two prominent members of the Senate Armed Services Committee are leading a bipartisan effort to establish a U.S.-Israel Operations-Technology Working Group (OTWG) that would coordinate and catalyze combined... March 2, 2020 North Korea’s Latest Missile Test Underscores Its Relentless Military Ambitions North Korea test-fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Monday. Pyongyang’s latest provocation shows that North Korea remains far more interested in expanding its military capabilities than in pursuing... February 26, 2020 New Leader Takes Helm of Iranian Proxy Forces in Iraq Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) – the paramilitary organization that encompasses the country’s pro-Iran and Shiite militias – named Abdulaziz al-Mohammadawi, also known as Abu Fadak, as... February 25, 2020 U.S. Sanctions Five Members of Iran’s Guardian Council The Trump administration on Thursday sanctioned five officials who sit on Iran’s 12-member Guardian Council, which screens parliamentary and presidential candidates to ensure their fidelity to Iran’s... February 24, 2020 Treasury Targets Maduro’s Oil Lifeline The U.S. Treasury Department last week sanctioned a subsidiary of Russian energy giant Rosneft for its leading role in illicit exports of Venezuelan oil. With this much-anticipated step, the Trump administration... February 21, 2020 FATF Reimposes Countermeasures on Iran for Failing to Meet Anti-Money Laundering Standards Today, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) followed through on its October 2019 commitment to re-impose due-diligence countermeasures on Iran if Tehran failed – as it has since 2016 – to complete... February 21, 2020 Justice Department Brands Huawei as a Criminal Enterprise The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies and its subsidiaries last week for alleged racketeering, theft of intellectual property, and conspiracy... February 14, 2020 Erdogan Plots to Take Over Turkey’s Largest Private Bank – For the Third Time Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday reportedly approved plans for Ankara’s Treasury to take a 28 percent stake in Isbank, the country’s largest publicly listed lender. Turkey’s protracted... February 14, 2020 UN’s New Anti-Israel Blacklist Condemns Companies for Generic Business Activities UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet released a blacklist on Wednesday of 112 companies operating in “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory … and in the occupied... February 13, 2020 Flat Pentagon Budget Heightens Need for Timely Defense Appropriation Consistent with last year’s budget agreement, this week the Trump administration requested $740.5 billion in national defense funding for fiscal year (FY) 2021 – a negligible increase that will not... February 13, 2020 The Roadmap to Further Pressure Tehran’s Oil and Gas Industry The president of the Statistical Center of Iran announced last week that Iranian GDP contracted 7.6 percent in the first three quarters of Persian calendar year 1398, which correspond roughly to the last... February 13, 2020 The UN Blacklist, U.S. Laws, and U.S. Policy The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published on Wednesday a “database” of companies doing business with Israeli settlements. The list includes 112 firms, 94 of them Israeli and the other 18 from... February 13, 2020 Nomination for Iraqi Premiership Largely Brokered by Iranian Axis Despite the promises of Iraq’s prime minister-designate, Mohammed Allawi, to address the demands of protesters that drove his predecessor from office, his nomination has been met with universal derision... February 7, 2020 Turkish Casualties in Idlib Test Putin-Erdogan Alliance Sunday’s assault by Russian-backed Syrian pro-regime forces against the opposition-held province of Idlib, leaving eight Turkish servicemen dead, has severely tested Ankara’s alliance with Moscow. As... February 5, 2020 The EU Foreign Policy Chief’s Mission Impossible in Tehran The new EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, traveled to Tehran this week to salvage the almost-dead Iran nuclear deal. Borell’s mission had little hope of success, however, since the European Union... February 5, 2020 New U.S. Weapon Strengthens Nuclear Deterrence of Moscow The Department of Defense announced this week that the U.S. Navy has deployed a low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) nuclear warhead. This deployment, which aims to deter Russia’s first-use... February 4, 2020 Turkey’s Pro-Government Hackers Grow Bolder British and American officials have attributed a sweeping cyber-espionage campaign to hackers aligned with the Turkish government. The discovery of Ankara’s brazen cyber offensive, whose main targets... January 31, 2020 American Citizen Sues Qatari Bank for Funding Terror An American photojournalist kidnapped and tortured by a Syrian terror group is suing Qatar Islamic Bank for allegedly funding it. The case reinforces Qatar’s ongoing challenges in tackling terror finance... January 29, 2020 U.S. Prosecutors Propose Massive Contempt Fine for Sanctions-Evading Turkish Bank U.S. prosecutors in New York asked a federal judge on January 21 to impose escalating fines on Turkey’s Halkbank for failing to respond in court to criminal charges that it helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions.... January 24, 2020 U.S. Maximum Pressure Campaign Should Target Tehran Stock Exchange and Khamenei’s Business Empire The office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced last week that additional entities under its control would go public on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), enabling them to access capital more effectively.... January 22, 2020 Time to Redouble U.S. Defense Support for Taiwan Voters in Taiwan delivered a resounding re-election victory on January 11 to incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, the pro-sovereignty candidate who stood up to Beijing and unabashedly campaigned in favor of... January 21, 2020 Arms Embargo on Iran Set to Expire in Less Than a Year Last week marked the fourth anniversary of the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, which means that key restrictions on Iran will soon begin to expire, or “sunset,” despite the U.S. withdrawal... January 21, 2020 U.S. Sanctions Iranian General for Role in Killing Protesters The State Department on Friday sanctioned a key Iranian military official who presided over the killing of 148 protesters during the November demonstrations in the Iranian city of Mahshahr. The designation... January 17, 2020 Turkish and Syrian Intelligence Chiefs Meet in Moscow The head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, Hakan Fidan, met with his Syrian counterpart, Ali Mamlouk, in Moscow on Monday, marking the first official contact in years between the two officials.... January 17, 2020 Russia Strengthens Hand in Europe, Ukraine with Inauguration of TurkStream Pipeline Russian, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Serbian leaders gathered last week to inaugurate TurkStream, a pipeline designed to supply Russian natural gas to Turkey and Europe while bypassing Ukraine. The project... January 15, 2020 U.S. Sanctions North Korean Companies for Profiting From Overseas Slave Labor The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a North Korean trading company and a China-based North Korean lodging facility on Tuesday for helping Pyongyang generate illicit revenue through overseas forced labor.... January 7, 2020 Washington Must Calibrate Its Iran Policy to Deter a Nuclear Breakout Iran announced on Sunday that it would discard “the last key component of its operational limitations” under the 2015 nuclear deal, namely “enrichment capacity, percentage of enrichment, amount of... January 3, 2020 Time to Increase Economic Pressure on Iran’s Allies in Iraq At Tehran’s direction, Iraqi Shiite militias laid siege to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad this week, to which the United States responded with an airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and... December 19, 2019 New Syria Sanctions Law Will Cement Assad Regime’s Isolation The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 will now head to the president’s desk as part of Congress’ annual defense authorization bill, which the Senate approved on Tuesday following House action... December 18, 2019 Congress Sends Defense Authorization Bill to President The Senate voted 86-8 on Tuesday to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020, sending the bill – which had already passed 377-48 in the House – to the president for... December 13, 2019 Iran’s President Submits a Budget of Fantasies President Hassan Rouhani submitted his 2020-2021 budget to the Iranian parliament this week, in which he proposes irresponsible levels of spending based on optimistic projections of revenue from taxes and... December 11, 2019 Syrian Currency Crisis Batters Assad Regime The value of the Syrian pound (SYP) hit an all-time low last week, falling 25 percent in a matter of days before recovering slightly. The worsening currency crisis demonstrates the extent of the Bashar... December 10, 2019 Turkey-Libya Maritime Border Deal Escalates Tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean Turkey signed an agreement with Libya on November 27 in an attempt to redraw maritime boundaries in the volatile eastern Mediterranean. Signed just ahead of last week’s tense NATO summit in London, the... December 9, 2019 DOJ Charges Cryptocurrency Developer with Helping Pyongyang Evade Sanctions The U.S. Department of Justice arrested Virgil Griffith, an American cryptocurrency developer, last week on charges of helping the North Korean regime evade sanctions by using blockchain technology and... December 9, 2019 Washington Should Threaten Sanctions Against Buyers of Iran’s Heavy Water Nuclear inspectors reported in late November that Iran had exceeded the 2015 nuclear deal’s limit on stockpiles of heavy water, a commodity employed in nuclear reactors. This move is part of the Iranian... November 27, 2019 Seoul’s Temporary Adherence to Intelligence Pact Risks Emboldening China The Republic of Korea (ROK) announced on Friday that it would conditionally suspend the expiration of its bilateral military intelligence sharing pact with Japan, formally known as the General Security... November 26, 2019 U.S. Sanctions Iran’s Minister of Information and Communications Technology The Trump administration sanctioned Iran’s minister of information and communications technology (ICT) on Friday for his longstanding role in suppressing Iranian citizens’ access to the internet. The... November 26, 2019 Gaza Fighting Causes Rift Among Palestinian Terrorist Groups A public dispute erupted this month between Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hamas, two Iran-backed terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, following Israel’s November 12 assassination of senior PIJ leader...

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