Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

Iranian authorities finally admitted that they killed protesters in the country’s streets. On Monday evening, state media said the country’s security officials used lethal force against “thugs and rioters” last month after protests broke out in reaction to a gas price increase. – Washington Post

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called on Wednesday for the release of any unarmed and innocent people who were detained during protests against gasoline price hikes, after two weeks of violent clashes. – Reuters

Families of several U.S. and British people held in Iran expressed fear for their loved ones Tuesday amid the deadliest unrest in decades in the Islamic republic. – Associated Press

The United Nations’ atomic watchdog agency is still waiting for information from Iran on the discovery of uranium particles at a site near Tehran, the agency’s new director general told The Associated Press on Tuesday in an interview. – Associated Press

President Donald Trump on Tuesday decried the Iranian government’s crackdown on protesters, saying Tehran is killing its citizens for speaking out at demonstrations. – Associated Press

Iran has proposed President Hassan Rouhani visit Japan, a U.S. ally which also has close relations with Tehran, to try to resolve Iran’s nuclear impasse with Washington, Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday. – Reuters

Aides to President Donald Trump are weighing imposing new sanctions on Iranian officials implicated in human rights abuses, relying in part on intelligence gleaned from some 36,000 pictures, videos and other tips sent in by Iranians caught up in the regime’s recent crackdown on mass protests. – Politico

Iran will hold joint naval drills with China and Russia starting on December 27, the head of Iran’s navy said on Tuesday. – Times of Israel

David Ignatius writes: The recent wave of demonstrations against the Iranian regime has been powerful partly because it gathers so many streams of dissent — from Iran and the diaspora; from women’s rights activists and working-class Iranians angry about living standards; and from the diverse ethnic groups in Iran. – Washington Post

Thomas L. Friedman writes: But the bad guys at the top won’t go easily, quietly or bloodlessly. And since no outside power will be riding to the rescue, it will take sustained, organized, bottom-up mass movements — in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran in particular — to enable the future to bury the past and topple all those at the top who want to use the past to bury the future. – New York Times

Seth J. Frantzman writes: For Israel, which views the Iranian threat with utmost concern, an Iranian initiative in the Gulf would be aimed at prying away countries that share interests with Jerusalem. Iran knows this. Tehran hopes for the best in coming months. If not, it may bring out more sticks than carrots. – Jerusalem Post

Yonah Jeremy Bob writes: Going into the US presidential election year, Trump has repeatedly tried to present himself as disengaging the US from war and conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere. Iran may see all of this as an opening to strike the US to try to push Trump into cutting a deal for reducing sanctions, which otherwise he may not agree to. If Iran makes this decision, then the question will be whether US intelligence will move fast enough to thwart the attack. – Jerusalem Post

Turkey

Against a backdrop of spiralling tensions, Greece’s prime minister is to meet his Turkish counterpart in an attempt to ease frictions over energy exploration and Ankara’s deal with Libya on Mediterranean maritime zones. – The Guardian

Turkey has rejected claims it is blackmailing Nato by blocking a military plan for the Baltics and Poland unless it receives support for its effort to defeat Syrian Kurd forces on its borders. – The Guardian

Michael Rubin writes: Today, the truth is all too clear: Any possibility of a Western-leaning Turkey is gone. It is long past time that not only Trump but also his would-be Democratic successors accept and address Turkey’s new strategic reality. – American Interest

Iraq

Iraq and some other oil-exporting nations will support deeper production cuts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies as the cartel attempts to shore up sagging oil prices. – Wall Street Journal

Iraq’s rival parties were negotiating the contours of a new government on Monday, after the previous cabinet was brought down by a two-month protest movement insisting on even more deep-rooted change. – Agence France-Presse

Anti-government protesters burned an Iranian consulate in southern Iraq for a third time on Tuesday, as the country’s political leaders continued talks over selecting a new prime minister following weeks of widespread unrest. – Associated Press

Sardar Aziz writes: All this being said, while the Syrian withdrawal may have harmed the Kurdish-American relationship, it is by no means the end. The ongoing global and regional shifts and crises are likely to bring the United States and the Kurds closer together as their interests continue to align. Twenty-first century conflicts make local partners necessary, and local partners and proxies appears set to shape the coming decades. – Washington Institute

Korean Peninsula

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is back on his white horse, inspecting “revolutionary battle sites” in knee-high virgin snow on a sacred mountain, state media announced on Wednesday, as Pyongyang foreshadowed a major policy decision later this month. – Washington Post

North Korea said on Tuesday that its leader, Kim Jong-un, had opened a new mountain resort this week, calling it “an epitome of modern civilization,” as the isolated country tries to attract more foreign tourists to blunt the pain of international sanctions. – New York Times

Tom Rogan writes: If Pyongyang returns to long-range missile tests, its ability to deliver nuclear warheads against the U.S. homeland will quickly become operational. Trump must thus make clear to Kim that while he favors a grand diplomatic bargain, any escalation will be met in greater kind. – Washington Examiner

Asia

A Japanese physician and aid worker in eastern Afghanistan died of his wounds after an attack Wednesday that also killed five Afghans, including the doctor’s bodyguards, the driver and a passenger, a hospital spokesman said. – Associated Press

Prosecutors are appealing to judges at the International Criminal Court to authorize a wide-ranging investigation into alleged crimes in Afghanistan’s brutal conflict. – Associated Press

David Fickling writes: If Taiwan took on Hong Kong’s role as China’s banker it would rightly be worried that Beijing might want to meddle even more aggressively in its affairs. In light of this year’s events in Hong Kong, where people are protesting for rights that Taiwanese have long taken for granted, that bargain looks less attractive than ever. – Bloomberg

Europe

With only two weeks to go before the British election, murky allegations of supposed Russian interference are flying, hitting numerous party leaders. – Washington Post

A Democratic-controlled House committee approved a report accusing President Trump of soliciting foreign election interference and placing “his own personal and political interests above the national interests” by pushing Ukraine to announce an investigation into a 2020 political rival. – Wall Street Journal

President Trump openly jousted with French President Emmanuel Macron — a leader who until recently had been one of Trump’s earliest and most prominent partners in bromance. – Washington Post

NATO leaders on Wednesday played down their differences and insisted that they remain united over security issues and determined to defend each other despite a series of spats between the presidents of some of the alliance’s biggest member countries. – Associated Press

The defense ministers of Estonia and Lithuania appeared unworried by the prospect of Turkey holding up NATO’s eastern European defense plans over the security of its own border with Syria, portraying the standoff as a second-tier problem that would be easily sorted out. – Defense News

Anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism, France’s National Assembly determined on Tuesday, voting on a resolution calling on the government to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. – Jerusalem Post

The head of an EU mission to Malta has called on the country’s embattled prime minister to quit immediately amid anger over his handling of the investigation into the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. – The Guardian

Mark Landler writes: Likewise, Mr. Trump’s newfound discretion on British politics will probably last only until Dec. 12, when Britons go to the polls, if that long. If Mr. Johnson is successful in winning a parliamentary majority and takes Britain out of the European Union, he will be more dependent than ever on his relationship with Mr. Trump, particularly since he has sold Brexit on the promise that he can cut a lucrative trade deal with the United States. – New York Times

Defense

Next year, Air Force F-35 pilots will be able to hop into a simulator and practice large-scale coordinated attacks with other F-35A users in simulators around the globe, Lockheed Martin’s head of F-35 training said Tuesday. – Defense News

As the U.S. military prepares for the release of its fiscal 2021 budget request, Air Force leaders have made clear that a massive financial hike is needed for multidomain command-and-control efforts to connect weapon systems across the joint force. – Defense News

The Navy’s ability to keep on track its top acquisition program, the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, rests heavily on its ability to keep the Virginia-class attack boat program on track – something the two submarine builders have struggled with in recent years amid challenges with their workforce and supplier base as the Virginia program increased to a two-a-year production cadence. – USNI News

Defense contractor Raytheon has just unveiled a new virtual training simulator designed to immerse full platoons of soldiers at a time into realistic battlefield settings, where they can shoot enemy targets with individual weapons and even call in close-air support. – Military.com

A Colorado weapons manufacturer has agreed to a $1 million settlement for allegedly shipping subpar grenade launchers to the U.S. Army, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. – Associated Press

The U.S. Navy’s fighter pilots lack the skills to defeat Chinese and Russian pilots in combat, one officer warned. To better prepare for high-tech combat, the sailing branch’s F/A-18 crews should fire more live missiles in exercises and better focus their training, Navy officer Graham Scarbro advised at War on the Rocks. – The National Interest