Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

The United Nations’ atomic agency has heeded calls by the U.S. and Israel to inspect a site that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed last fall was housing Iranian nuclear equipment and material, according to officials familiar with the agency’s work. But the visit may have come too late to yield proof of the claims. – Wall Street Journal

The U.N. atomic watchdog policing Iran’s nuclear deal has inspected what Israel’s prime minister called a “secret atomic warehouse” in Tehran, three diplomats familiar with the agency’s work said. – Reuters

Iranians affected by the county’s worst floods in a decade have been staging angry demonstrations against what they say is an inadequate relief response by the government. – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

President Hassan Rouhani has once again attacked the United States for imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic, accusing Washington of blocking international aid from reaching flood-hit Iran. – Radio Farda

David Albright and Andrea Stricker write: Turquz Abad ultimately must be looked at as a failure by the IAEA to act promptly, but it can still salvage its mission in Iran and provide assurances or other conclusions following the disclosure of the Nuclear Archive information. After all, its basic mandate is to verify Iran’s safeguards agreement as a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty member state. So far, it still remains far from determining that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful. – Institute for Science and International Security

Islamic State

Iraq must ensure that Islamic State leadership faces justice for alleged war crimes and genocide against civilians, not just charges of belonging to a terrorist group, a United Nations human rights investigator said on Thursday. – Reuters

For months, U.S. commanders have been warning that even when the last bit of Syrian territory was liberated from the control of the Islamic State, the brutal ISIS movement would be far from defeated. – Washington Examiner

Diliman Abdulkader writes: In other words, ISIS is not defeated, and ISIS will likely reemerge. […]The SDF, SDC, and the 79-member Global Coalition has taken away Assad’s lifeline by holding on to northeast Syria. The Assad regime is cash-strapped; relieving the pressure now would be a grave mistake. Assad may have retaken large swaths of territory west of the Euphrates river, but most of Syria’s assets are east of the Euphrates. He needs to take them back, and the U.S. presence there blocks him from doing so. The U.S. should hold its ground. – Washington Examiner

Turkey

Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems, which has raised tensions with Washington, is a “done deal” and cannot be canceled, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday. – Reuters

The United States is continuing discussions with Turkey over its plans to buy a missile defense system from Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday, adding he was confident the two NATO allies could find a path forward. – Reuters

Turkey’s foreign minister on Thursday criticized a statement from the U.S. State Department about his meeting with his U.S. counterpart, saying references to Syria and detained U.S. consular staff did not reflect the truth. – Reuters

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo isn’t interested in forming a “technical working group” to discuss whether Turkey’s purchase of major Russian weaponry could endanger Western militaries. – Washington Examiner

The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin Corp. this week delivered an F-35 jet bought by Turkey to an Arizona base where it will help train Turkish pilots, despite a continuing dispute over that country’s purchase of a Russian missile defense system. – Bloomberg

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence warned Turkey that its “reckless” move to purchase a Russian missile-defense system risked diminishing the nation’s role within NATO. – Bloomberg

The University’s decision to cancel a panel discussion regarding the rule of law in Turkey has sparked national conversation among scholars regarding political pressure from the Turkish government and its potential to interfere with academic freedom at Columbia. – Columbia Spectator

Iraq

Iraqi premier Adel Abdel Mahdi will travel to Iran on Saturday, a member of his office said, in his first official visit to the country rivaling Washington for influence over Baghdad. – Agence France-Presse

Nadia Murad writes: The Iraqi government and international actors must help preserve evidence of the Yazidi genocide and other Islamic State attacks, including mass graves, documents and the testimonies of survivors. We are ready to face our captors and rapists in local and international courts, and even participate in a truth and reconciliation committee. Do not let our stories and our bravery go to waste. – Washington Post

Hazhar Omer Ismail writes: As we witness the final moments of the ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria, we in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have been welcoming back Yezidis, who by some miracle survived the genocide and escaped the terror group’s last wretched days in Baghouz, Syria. For the people of the region, the liberation of the last territory held by this perverse death cult is a welcomed milestone. But this is not really an end, just the beginning of the next phase of our war against terrorism. If we are to win the post-caliphate peace in Iraq, we will need the full diplomatic and military support of the United States and its partners. – The Hill

Yemen

The House on Thursday gave final passage to a bipartisan resolution forcing an end to United States military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, sending President Trump a pointed rebuke over his continued defense of the kingdom after the killing of a dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. – New York Times

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, has suspended work at its hospital in Yemen’s second city of Aden after the kidnapping and killing of one of its patients. – Al Jazeera

Middle East & North Africa

The resignation of Algerian leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika after huge protests has inspired activists in the region, but looks unlikely to spark a repeat of the Arab Spring uprisings. – Agence France-Presse

Whoever replaces Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, ousted by weeks of protest, will inherit another crisis-in-the-making: the economy. Even before hundreds of thousands of Algerians began their campaign for political change, the government had only a few years worth of foreign currency reserves left. With the OPEC member heading into uncharted territory after Bouteflika resigned on Tuesday, the clock to financial upheaval is now ticking faster. – Bloomberg

David Ignatius writes: U.S. foreign policy often focuses on giving countries political advice — which in Egypt and many other countries has created a backlash of popular resentment. The Enterprise Fund idea is instead to give them capital to start new businesses. The balance sheet presented by Enan suggests this is one U.S. strategy that actually works. – Washington Post

China

The U.S. and China are aiming to reach a trade deal in the next four weeks, President Trump said, though he failed to announce a much-anticipated summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. – Wall Street Journal

The prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology is cutting future research collaborations with Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE, citing US investigations into the companies’ alleged sanctions violations. – Agence France-Presse

Josh Rogin writes: The issue of Chinese influence in U.S. academia is complex. Not all Confucius Institutes operate the same. Not all research partnerships carry security risks. Chinese student groups on campus are often connected to the Chinese government, but instances of their direct interference in academic freedom are few and far between. It will take all sectors of the U.S. government and society working together to further comprehend Beijing’s strategy and then respond smartly to protect our society. – Washington Post

Scott Paul writes: The time to deal is now. It’s time to demand more market access for American firms; firmly enforced intellectual property rights; enforced labor standards for Chinese workers; equivalent standards and enforcement for pollution controls; and escalated tariffs, should China fail to meet its obligations, rather than a lengthy and frustrating consultation process. – Washington Examiner

Asia

Chinese fishing vessels have swarmed the waters around a Philippine-controlled island in the South China Sea in recent months—sparking fears in Manila that Beijing is trying to assert greater control in a disputed area. – Wall Street Journal

Three weeks after Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant live-streamed his mosque rampage on Facebook , authorities in New Zealand announced new charges against him and neighboring Australia passed laws to force social-media companies to remove violent or objectionable content. […]Mr. Tarrant will face 50 murder charges and 39 attempted-murder charges, with perhaps more to follow, New Zealand police said on Thursday. – Wall Street Journal

The suspected New Zealand mosque gunman sent money to a French far-right group and once bought a ticket to Bavaria’s “fairytale castle,” German police said Thursday. – Associated Press

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday he was open to allowing the return of orphaned children of an Australian jihadist in a Syrian refugee camp following their desperate plea for help. – Agence France-Presse

India’s claim that one of its fighter pilots shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet in an aerial battle between the two nuclear powers in February appears to be wrong. Two senior U.S. defense officials with direct knowledge of the situation told Foreign Policy that U.S. personnel recently counted Islamabad’s F-16s and found none missing. – Foreign Policy

Europe

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on NATO members to “stand together” and confront evolving threats, even as resentments old and new flared at a meeting of alliance diplomats Thursday in Washington. – Washington Post

The accumulated incidents in Europe and the United States have highlighted how an ancient prejudice is surging in the 21st century in both familiar and mutant ways, fusing ideologies that otherwise would have little overlap. The spike is taking place in a context of rising global economic uncertainty, an emphasis on race and national identity, and a deepening polarization between the political left and right in Europe and the United States over the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. – New York Times

For 46 years, British manufacturers have built their supply chains and export markets around free trade with Europe. On April 12, that could come to an end, rupturing one of the world’s most advanced, cross-border assembly lines. To get ready, British companies are hoarding at rates rarely seen outside of wartime. – Wall Street Journal

A Dutch judge on Thursday extended for three months the detention of the suspect in a shooting that killed four people in the city of Utrecht last month. Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, 37, is accused of carrying out the shooting aboard a tram out of terrorist intent. Authorities are also investigating whether he had other personal motives. – Reuters

A Twitter account for WikiLeaks, the document trove website founded by Julian Assange, said Thursday that Assange will be ousted from his sanctuary at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London within “hours to days.” – The Hill

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and French counterpart Christophe Castaner said they are in full agreement on security issues as they sought to draw a line under months of contention between their two governments. – Bloomberg

A Spanish court ruled that a city council that nixed an Israeli film festival due to its support of boycotts of the Jewish state had violated four fundamental rights enshrined in the Spanish constitution. – Algemeiner

As Brexit day looms, the question of how to handle Britain’s border with Ireland has dominated the debate over the withdrawal agreement. But now a new EU law has shone a light on the future of another tricky frontier, that between Spain and the British territory of Gibraltar. – Agence France-Presse

Across much of Britain’s former Asian colonies, many are greeting the UK’s impending departure from the European Union with a mixture of bafflement, apathy, amusement — and a touch of schadenfreude. – Agence France-Presse

The chairman of European Union leaders Donald Tusk is likely to offer Britain a flexible extension of the date of the country’s exit from the EU of up to one year, with the possibility of leaving sooner, a senior EU official said. – Reuters

With Britain still feverishly discussing its Brexit plans, the other 27 European Union states are preparing their joint stance for a top-level summit with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday. – Reuters

Editorial: Avoiding Brexit altogether is still the best way forward, even if it means further delay and the costs that go with it. The right result is possible even now, if Britain’s politicians finally start putting the country’s interests first. – Bloomberg

Henry Olsen writes: The threat to U.S. security from an increasingly aggressive China will also impact the alliance, regardless of who is in the Oval Office. […]A wise foreign policy would stop trying to revive the old and instead try to create the new. The United States does have important interests in a strong transatlantic alliance, and the president is wrong to think we should withdraw from NATO, as he has reportedly done in private. But it may also be pulling on a string to maintain an old alliance that some of its members no longer value as much as they used to. – Washington Post

Tim Kaine and Cory Gardner write: For long-term sustainability, it will be important for all NATO members to increase their spending on defense, in order to meet and exceed the minimum threshold of 2 percent of GDP. We strongly believe that as allies, we should have frank but respectful conversations about this important issue. – The Atlantic

Will Hurd writes: This shield remains indispensable to American national security and, it is incumbent on policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic to continue to make the case for NATO to their peoples and reinforce what we have accomplished together. These partners are our true friends, with bonds forged through the fire of conflict and through the growth of democracy. We must always stand with them. – The Hill

Howard Schulz writes: We must support the alliance’s efforts to transition resources to the increasing threat from cyber attacks around the globe — most especially from Russia. NATO needs even more fortification to fight this growing menace, which may soon become the gravest threat facing the American people. As NATO looks ahead to its next 70 years, the United States must continue to be a leader for peace and security. And we must do so in concert with our allies. – Medium

United States

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday told lawmakers that white supremacist violence is a “persistent” and “pervasive” threat in the U.S. – The Hill

A second Democratic office in Oklahoma was vandalized Tuesday with racist and Nazi graffiti and police say the suspect is the same woman accused of vandalizing the state’s Democratic Party Headquarters and the Chickasaw Nation office with Nazi and anti-gay language last week, according to NBC News. – The Hill

The main suspect behind antisemitic and racist vandalism carried out in Norman, Oklahoma overnight Tuesday is believed to have also painted hateful graffiti in neighboring Oklahoma City last week. – Algemeiner

Cybersecurity

Australia has passed tough new laws that threaten to send social media executives to jail if they do not act quickly to take down violent content. – Al Jazeera

German chemicals company Bayer said Thursday that it was the target of a cyberattack that has been traced to a hacking group in China. – The Hill

A survey of security professionals in six countries, including the UK, by the Ponemon Institute found 90% had been hit by at least one successful attack. – BBC News

Trump Administration

Donald Trump wanted a victory lap after the apparent flop of the Russia collusion probe, but on Thursday, 11 days later, the president instead found himself being chased in circles. – Agence France-Presse

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a 2020 presidential candidate, is accusing CNN’s Fareed Zakaria of trying to “goad” President Trump “into going to war” with Russia. – The Hill

Shortly before Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed his report on the Russia investigation last month, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., alerted Attorney General Bill Barr to what they described as the “selective” use of emails in Mueller court filings — as well as potential “improper political influence, misconduct, and mismanagement” in the FBI’s original Russia probe. – Fox News