Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

Iran will refuse to negotiate with the U.S. as long as Washington maintains its campaign of “maximum pressure”—even if President Trump is re-elected, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday. – Wall Street Journal

The Trump administration justified the Jan. 3 strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in part by citing an 18-year-old congressional authorization that paved the way for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and overthrow of leader Saddam Hussein, according to a White House notice made public on Friday. – Wall Street Journal

An Iranian man accused of violating U.S. sanctions and detained in Germany has been freed and has returned to Iran after diplomatic efforts by Tehran, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday. – Reuters

Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab, who is getting the cold shoulder from Gulf Arab states, on Monday met Iran’s parliament speaker, the first senior foreign official to visit since Diab’s government took office. – Reuters

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that he doesn’t believe the U.S. will pursue war with his country, because it will harm President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection bid. – Associated Press

Hajj Qasem, as Qasem Soleimani is fondly remembered by his friends from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, came into his role at a unique time. In an interview with Iranian media, a former Iranian defense minister recalled the life of Soleimani. – Jerusalem Post

Iran’s Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s elite Aerospace force, has said that the region must unite to expel “Zionists” and Americans. – Jerusalem Post

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and other Democratic senators had a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference. Murphy’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time. – The Federalist

The Spokesman of Iran Electrical Power Industry on Monday said a shortage of fuel for power plants is responsible for blackouts in Tehran and several other cities across Iran. – Radio Farda

The latest report from Iran’s Central Bank (CBI) released on Thursday indicates a steep rise in the volume of money supply and increased government borrowing from banks. – Radio Farda

The U.S. “maximum pressure” policy aimed at isolating Iran will not work, but the regime would be willing to negotiate if the Trump administration returns to the Iranian nuclear deal and drops economic sanctions, President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday. – USA Today

Tuğba Tanyeri Erdemir writes: February 11th marks the 41st anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. Just in the last year, the condition of Iranian minorities has deteriorated considerably. ADL calls on the international community to demand that the Islamic Republic of Iran abide by the Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which grants everyone the right to freedom of conscience and religion, including the freedom to practice one’s beliefs and freedom to change one’s religion. – Medium

Syria

Turkey dispatched a delegation to Moscow on Monday for another round of talks aimed at forging a cease-fire agreement in Syria, where relief agencies warn that a deadly vortex of proxy wars could cause the worst humanitarian disaster in the nine-year conflict. – Wall Street Journal

The situation in Idlib in northwestern Syrian will not be resolved until Syrian government forces withdraw beyond the borders that Turkey and Russia outlined in a 2018 agreement, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday. – Reuters

President Donald Trump has called for Russia to end its support for the Syrian regime’s “atrocities” as he expressed US concern over violence in the Idlib region, the White House said Sunday. – Agence France-Presse

ImageSat International (ISI) reported on Monday evening that heavy damage was inflicted upon Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sites at Damascus International Airport on February 13. Airstrikes appear to have hit warehouses, a shelter, headquarters and infrastructure. – Jerusalem Post

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he did not know anything about the alleged Israeli attack that targeted the Damascus area on Thursday, adding that maybe it was “the Belgian Air Force.” – Jerusalem Post

Syrian President Bashar Assad congratulated his forces Monday for recent gains in northwestern Syria that led to his troops consolidating control over Aleppo province, pledging to press ahead with a military campaign to achieve complete victory “sooner or later.” – Associated Press

A Syrian military helicopter was shot down over the last major rebel bastion in northwest Syria on Friday, the second such incident in a week of high tensions with Turkey. – Agence France-Presse

Syrian President Bashar al Assad said on Monday his forces’ rapid recent gains in their Russian-backed military offensive presaged the eventual defeat of the nine-year insurgency that sought to oust him from power. – Reuters

Iraq

Multiple rockets hit an Iraqi base hosting American troops near the US embassy early Sunday, the latest in a flurry of attacks against US assets in the country. – Agence France-Presse

The top United Nations envoy to Iraq condemned on Monday the use of hunting rifles loaded with birdshot against peaceful protesters in Baghdad and urged the government to ensure those demonstrating are not harmed. – Reuters

An Iraqi parliament member slammed the US in an interview over the weekend, alleging the Americans want to “destabilize” Iraq and that the US is involved in a pro-ISIS conspiracy to bring extremists from Syria. – Jerusalem Post

A rocket attack near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and an Iraqi base where U.S. troops are stationed resulted in no casualties, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. – Washington Examiner

Denmark will send its military personnel back to the Iraqi al-Asad base on March 1, after last month temporarily moving some of them to Kuwait due to security concerns, the Danish Defence Minister Trine Bramsen said on Monday. – Reuters

The US wants to destabilize Iraq and is involved in a pro-ISIS conspiracy to bring extremists from Syria, an Iraqi parliament member said over the weekend. – Jerusalem Post

Michael Rubin writes: But, until Erbil resolves its own political divisions[…] and unless Erbil can answer how an independent Kurdistan will resist Iranian aggression, be economically viable, and live alongside the remainder of Iraq without territorial disputes that could devolve quickly into military conflict, the arguments for Kurdish independence will fall flat, if not among Kurds themselves than among the international patrons whom they seek to convince. Offers of new American bases in Iraqi Kurdistan will not change that. – Kurdistan Times

Yemen

Airstrikes in Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition killed more than 30 civilians, according to U.N. officials late Saturday. – Washington Post

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement accused the Saudi-led coalition of carrying out retaliatory air strikes on Saturday that killed at least 30 people including civilians, in the latest flare-up of a five-year war. – Reuters

Elisabeth Kendall writes: An increasingly politicized incarnation of al-Qaeda in Yemen may be coming to the fore. Whether by choice or necessity, some AQAP fighters may be evolving from ideological jihadists into guns-for-hire. Even so, the ideological core of AQAP remains. […]the UN, Britain, the United States, and other stakeholders should take advantage of the group’s current disarray and take steps to ensure that no Yemeni factions are left behind—in part by addressing the underlying conditions that generate extremism, but also by introducing transparent mechanisms for inclusive representation at peace talks. – Washington Institute

Middle East & North Africa

The risk of a military confrontation is higher in the Strait of Hormuz than anywhere else in the Gulf region, Oman’s foreign minister said, due in part to the growing number of military vessels from different countries that are guarding it. – Reuters

A Bahrani citizen was sentenced to three years in prison by his country’s court after burning an Israeli flag, Middle East Monitor reported, citing the Al-Bilad newspaper. – Jerusalem Post

Amnesty International has labeled 2019 a “year of defiance” across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in a report released on Tuesday. The study focuses on mass uprisings and human rights abuses, and equates the Israel Defense Forces’ use of “excessive, including lethal, force against demonstrators” in the Gaza Strip with the violent suppression seen during protests in Iran and Iraq. – Jerusalem Post

Haj Amin Husseini, who was appointed by the British High Commissioner as Mufti of Jerusalem during the British Mandate for Palestine, was the link for managing the recruitment of Arab fighters to the Nazi army, the Saudi newspaper Okaz reported in an article published on Friday. – Jerusalem Post

German defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on Saturday proposed a European Union-led naval protection mission for the Strait of Hormuz, piggy-backing on a French initiative already underway. – Defense News

Eric R. Mandel writes: President Barack Obama might be forgiven for believing the political Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood had a benign side compared to Salafist radicalism, but no American president going forward can claim ignorance to the dangers of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in any Middle Eastern country; just look at Egypt in 2013 and Turkey today. The outcome in Jordan would profoundly undermine Israeli and American security interests. There are no easy choices, but it would be negligent not to plan for the contingencies. – Jerusalem Post

China

Global competition between the U.S. and China is spurring countries around the world to increase their military spending, according to a new report by an international think tank that reported the biggest increase in more than a decade. – Wall Street Journal

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told European allies in a speech Saturday the U.S. considers China a pre-eminent threat in its pursuit of an “advantage by any means and at any cost.” – Wall Street Journal

A spreadsheet compiled by Chinese authorities responsible for tracking ethnic-minority Muslims catalogs detailed personal information—including whether they regularly pray at a mosque, possess a passport or have friends or relatives in trouble with the law. – Wall Street Journal

Houston Rockets general manager’s Daryl Morey tweet in October supporting the protesters in Hong Kong enraged the Beijing government[…]. It has been four months since the league’s reckoning, which has been overshadowed by China’s attempts to contain an outbreak of the novel coronavirus that has killed thousands of people, but the financial consequences for the NBA have only recently begun to come into focus. – Wall Street Journal

When President Xi Jinping made his first state visit this year to Myanmar and signed new infrastructure contracts, there was no indication of the obstacle about to trip up China’s plan for railways, ports and highways around the world: the coronavirus. – Reuters

William McGurn writes: This silence comes at a particularly terrible moment, when Mr. Xi is busy persecuting everyone from Tibetan Buddhists and Muslim Uighurs to house church Christians and Falun Gong practitioners. […]if the Vatican is looking for a diplomatic approach that combines the wisdom, cunning and respect for Chinese culture represented by Matteo Ricci, instead of putting Europeans in the lead, it could start with bishops who have experience of living under and dealing with the Chinese Communist Party. Not to mention a little more honesty about what it has in fact agreed to. – Wall Street Journal

Danielle Pletka writes: But this isn’t about punishing Beijing with a hammer. This is about taking a scalpel to Bad China, separating it to some extent from Better China, blocking the most malign parties’ access to the benefits of global commerce and acceptance in the community of civilized nations, and disincentivizing trade and trafficking with those who are complicit in China’s destructive agenda. – The Dispatch

Pakistan

A high-profile local Taliban figure who announced and justified the 2012 attack on teenage Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has escaped detention, Pakistan’s interior minister confirmed a few days after the militant announced his breakout on social media. – Reuters

At least 10 people were killed in a suicide blast that hit a police vehicle in southwestern Pakistan on Monday, officials said. – Reuters

A Middle East operation of Pakistan’s largest bank displayed “significant irregularities” in dealings with politically exposed clients and screening some transactions, according to an inspection by the South Asian nation’s central bank that took place more than a year after the lender was shut out of the U.S. financial system. – Bloomberg

Asia

The United States has imposed an entry bar on Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Shavendra Silva, citing his alleged involvement in war crimes during the final stages of the country’s civil war. – New York Times

Malaysia’s own security standards will dictate which companies take part in its planned 5G rollout this year, its communications minister told Reuters on Monday, as the United States pushes countries to exclude China’s Huawei [HWT.UL]. – Reuters

Editorial: Mr. Trump did suggest he would talk to Mr. Duterte, and he should. Mr. Trump’s presidency has seen a further erosion of the U.S. position in Asia, to Beijing’s advantage. That’s partly due to the aggressive moves made by the regime of Xi Jinping, but also to Mr. Trump’s penchant for quarreling with key allies, such as South Korea, on spurious financial grounds. The president ought to understand that preserving the U.S. presence in nations such as the Philippines is not just a matter of dollars and cents. – Washington Post

Europe

Top diplomats and security officials from the U.S. and Europe sought to bridge some of the biggest security divides straining the trans-Atlantic alliance, amid disputes over topics ranging from Iran to military spending. – Wall Street Journal

Thousands of far-right demonstrators and counterprotesters convened outside Dresden’s city hall on Saturday in a face-off over the 75th anniversary of the city’s bombing, whose commemoration has become disputed, reflecting the country’s—and Europe’s—polarization. – Wall Street Journal

Europe’s trade surplus with the U.S. hit a record high in 2019, amid renewed threats from President Trump to place tariffs on European Union goods if the bloc doesn’t agree to a new deal. – Wall Street Journal

Brexit shattered 50 years of trade policy in Britain, divorcing the country from its single largest market. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now trying to glue the pieces back together. – Bloomberg 

Hundreds of posters were hung across many Italian cities on Tuesday and Wednesday in a campaign to honor slain Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by US forces in January. – Jerusalem Post

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday traded barbs with European leaders over diminishing Western influence, rejecting as “grossly over-exaggerated” their claims that Washington had retreated from the global stage. – Agence France-Presse

President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday France was growing “impatient” with the lack of German response to its push to strengthen the European Union after Brexit. –  Agence France-Presse

European Council president Charles Michel on Sunday met with leaders of the six Western Balkan nations seeking to join the EU, for ‘frank’ talks ahead of a key summit in Zagreb in May. – Agence France-Presse

French President Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to increase European military independence from the United States while reaching out to Russia is irritating President Trump’s administration and stoking alarm in former Soviet nations. – Washington Examiner

The European Union on Monday extended until Feb. 28, 2021, an arms embargo on Belarus and an asset freeze against four nationals from the ex-Soviet republic, according to a statement. – Reuters

Walter Russell Mead writes: For many Europeans, the essential purpose of European integration was to end war. For centuries, the restless nationalisms of European peoples plunged the Continent into one wretched war after another. The European Union was meant to bury those national antagonisms and end the cycle of war. […]Americans continue to believe that Europe is worth defending. We must hope that over the next few years more Europeans will come around to that position; otherwise, the prospects for “Westlessness” will only grow. – Wall Street Journal

Andreas Kluth writes: In such a flexible EU, parts of Europe could coalesce into powers with geopolitical heft, while other parts retain more independence. This is the only way Europe can deepen and widen at the same time. Who knows? Maybe that’s the kind of EU even the Brits might want to join one day. – Bloomberg

Richard Fontaine writes: As usual, Munich’s greatest value this year was in the side conversations, the relationships established or deepened, the perspectives better understood and the possibility of changing one’s mind, even just a little bit. As for the biggest questions — the future of the West, the attractiveness of democratic ideals, the cohesion of the transatlantic partners — well, for now, perhaps it’s better to just have a pretzel. – War on the Rocks

Edward Lucas writes: The Munich Security Conference is an intimidating venue to launch a new idea. The participants are among the most important and expert people in the world. Getting their attention is hard. Getting their agreement is even harder. On the other hand, if you want to make a difference, it is a good place to start. […]We certainly should not Putinize ourselves in defense against Putinism. But we do have other options. – Center for European Policy Analysis

North America

Anxiety is increasing in Jewish communities around the United States, fueled in part by deadly attacks on synagogues in Poway, Calif., last April and in Pittsburgh in 2018. Anti-Semitic violence in the New York area has been more frequent lately than at any time in recent memory, with three people killed in a shooting at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, N.J., and five injured in a knife attack at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, N.Y. – New York Times

Justin Trudeau abandoned a trip to the Caribbean to deal with indigenous-rights protests that have crippled Canada’s railways. The prime minister, who traveled to Ethiopia and Senegal last week hoping to persuade African leaders to back his push for a United Nations Security Council seat, said late Sunday he would remain in Ottawa to deal with the crisis. – Bloomberg

Meir Soloveichik writes: In the 21st century, no president could use the language of the King James Bible with Lincoln’s certainty that his listeners would grasp the allusion. But Lincoln’s description of America as an “almost chosen people” remains important, not just as a key to his thought but as a warning for Americans today. A chosen people is eternal, but America is an exceptional nation only if it remains ever loyal to the covenant of its founding, the ideals for which Washington fought and Lincoln died. – Wall Street Journal

Peter Wallison writes: On Jan. 31, more than three years after the people of the United Kingdom had voted for it, Britain left the European Union in a move nicknamed “Brexit.”  […]Here, as in so many other areas, British politics seems to foreshadow what happens in the United States. Obviously, we are not subject to foreign control through a supranational organization such as the EU. But there are serious questions about the degree to which the American people are currently able to control the rules and regulations made by unelected officials in federal agencies – Washington Examiner 

Cybersecurity

The Trump administration is weighing new trade restrictions on China that would limit the use of American chip-making equipment, as it seeks to cut off Chinese access to key semiconductor technology, according to people familiar with the plan. – Wall Street Journal

Dell Technologies Inc. is nearing a deal to sell its RSA cybersecurity business to a private-equity firm for more than $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. – Wall Street Journal

A cybersecurity firm Ms. Shaheen hired to unravel the mystery eventually concluded she was the victim of a cyberattack, most likely emanating from China, the firm’s researchers said. – Wall Street Journal

The Pentagon has dropped its opposition to efforts within the Trump administration to make it harder for U.S. chip makers and other companies to supply China’s Huawei Technologies Co. from their overseas facilities, according to people familiar with the situation. – Wall Street Journal

America’s global campaign to prevent its closest allies from using Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, in the next generation of wireless networks has largely failed, with foreign leaders publicly rebuffing the United States argument that the firm poses an unmanageable security threat. – New York Times

The U.S. ambassador to Germany said President Donald Trump had instructed him to “make clear that any nation who chooses to use an untrustworthy 5G vendor” risks jeopardizing intelligence and information sharing with the U.S. – Bloomberg

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stepped up U.S. warnings about Beijing’s global telecommunications ambitions, saying Chinese operator Huawei Technologies Co. must be prevented from controlling the next generation of wireless networks. – Bloomberg

Amid fears of a Big Brother-style society ruled by machines, the EU will urge authorities and companies to think hard before rolling out facial recognition technology. – Agence France-Presse

A new German strategy document declares defense-related cyber technologies as key national assets, affording the domestic sector some protection from international competition. – Fifth Domain

The Department of Homeland Security wants to establish an internal organization dedicated to coordinating cybersecurity efforts across DHS and identifying joint priorities. – Fifth Domain

Long War

Twelve men — one a police employee — were arrested Friday on charges of forming and supporting a far-right terrorism network planning wide-ranging attacks on politicians, asylum seekers and Muslims, the authorities said. […]After focusing for years on the risks from Islamic extremists and foreign groups, officials are recalibrating their counterterrorism strategy to address threats from within. – New York Times

An Istanbul court acquitted novelist Asli Erdogan on Friday of charges of belonging to a terrorist group, in one of a series of cases that have fueled concern among European Union states and rights groups about a deterioration of media freedom in Turkey. – Reuters

Mike Giglio and Kathy Gilsinan write: U.S. military officials and Western and regional politicians have never stopped warning about the Islamic State’s ability to recruit fighters and launch attacks. When Trump ordered a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria in October, he faced bipartisan resistance from lawmakers who said the job was not yet done. But what is striking about Barzani’s portrayal of the group is the idea that it is not just surviving but thriving. This cuts against the official line from the White House.  – The Atlantic