Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

Newly inaugurated US President Joe Biden’s administration will launch an initiative through European mediators to open a direct dialogue with Tehran, a source in Washington told Sky News Arabia on Monday. – Times of Israel

In an unprecedented interview, a former senior Iranian cleric and current opposition figure spoke with an Israeli television news channel Monday night from Tehran, and called for an end to hostilities between the countries. – Times of Israel

Iran’s foreign ministry on Monday said that Tehran does not intend to expel the UN nuclear watchdog’s inspectors, clarifying the implications of a controversial law approved by parliament last month. – Agence France-Presse

Kambiz Foroohar writes: The Iranian government has been interfering in sports for years, but international sporting bodies are only now pressing for reform. […]Iranian sports are dominated by military and intelligence entities. It remains to be seen if FIFA and other international bodies can loosen their grip. It will take a major effort. – Middle East Institute 

Jacob Magid writes: Addressing senators at his confirmation hearing last week, Biden’s nominee for secretary of state Antony Blinken called it “vitally important” for the US to engage with Israel and its Arab allies “at the takeoff, not the landing” of its negotiations with Iran. Now it’s Israel’s turn to decide how it wants to move forward with the Biden administration. The process is at an embryonic stage, but a pair of reports leaked to Israel’s most prominent TV network last week suggest that Netanyahu may once again be heading toward a confrontational approach, suspicious that Israel’s concerns will not truly be heard by Washington. – Times of Israel

Lahav Harkov writes: Overall, the way Iran comes through in these readouts show that the Biden administration’s interlocutors are much more interested in focusing on the nuclear threat immediately than they are. […]For those reasons, and others, the Biden administration’s message in its written and spoken statements is clear: We’re not dealing with Iran yet. – Jerusalem Post

Arabian Peninsula

The U.S. military has been using an array of ports and air bases in Saudi Arabia’s western desert, developing basing options to use in the event of a conflict with Iran, according to the top American military commander in the region. – Wall Street Journal

Tens of thousands of Yemenis marched in Sanaa on Monday, heeding a call by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement to condemn the United States for labelling it a terrorist group and backing the Saudi-led military coalition that is battling it. – Reuters

The United States on Monday approved all transactions involving Yemen’s Houthi movement for the next month as Washington reviews a Trump administration designation of the Iran-aligned group as a foreign terrorist organization. – Reuters

Andrew England and Simeon Kerr write: His rise over the past decade epitomises the nexus between power, business and national strategic interest in Gulf states such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where a younger, tech-savvy and security-minded generation of royals have come to the fore. It also offers a glimpse into the inner workings of Abu Dhabi’s absolute monarchy, where the ruling family and a clique of trusted lieutenants dominate security and key sectors of the economy, blurring the lines between state and private enterprise. – Financial Times

Mustafa Naji and Ibrahim Jalal write: Over the past two decades, Yemen has become a matter of interest and concern for countries in the region and around the world for a variety of different reasons. […]As long as weapons transfers to armed non-state actors are not adequately restricted and the monopoly of violence is not exclusively in the hands of the government, it will be impossible to build sustainable peace in Yemen. – Middle East Institute

China

Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a veiled warning against the new Biden administration’s preparations to rally allies to challenge Beijing on a range of issues, urging multilateral coordination to tackle global challenges such as the pandemic. – Wall Street Journal

President Biden has said he plans to work with allies to keep pressure on China, but at the World Trade Organization the U.S. will be facing a rival in Beijing that has become a more dominant force in recent years. – Wall Street Journal

Now, after neutering the democracy movement with disqualifications and mass arrests, Beijing is tacitly effecting a shake-up of the pro-China camp, reflecting dwindling faith in its erstwhile allies amid its ongoing effort to remake Hong Kong. – Washington Post

Biden won’t confront Beijing right away, economists say, because he wants to focus on the coronavirus and the economy. However, Biden looks set to renew pressure over trade and technology grievances that prompted President Donald Trump to hike tariffs on Chinese imports in 2017. – Associated Press

China said on Tuesday it will conduct military exercises in the South China Sea this week, just days after Beijing bristled at a U.S. aircraft carrier group’s entry into the disputed waters. – Reuters

Hong Kong authorities are scrutinizing the financial records of pro-democracy activists as they crack down on political opposition, according to some activists and a senior bank executive. – Reuters

China’s President Xi Jinping on Monday called on the world to strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination and bolster the role of the G20 in global economic governance as he pointed to a “rather shaky” recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. – Reuters

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe argued on Monday that the Biden administration’s approach to the Chinese government is flawed because it is “inconsistent” with what intelligence demands. – Washington Examiner

Hong Kong is unlikely to see an exodus under a U.K. visa program for holders of special British passports, a top government adviser said, predicting that some would be offset by arrivals from mainland China. – Bloomberg

President Joe Biden’s administration is approaching its relationship with Beijing with “patience” and plans to review hard-line policies that were a hallmark of Donald Trump’s presidency, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. – Bloomberg

President Xi Jinping called on the world to abandon “ideological prejudice” and shun an “outdated Cold-War mentality” as he signaled that China will continue to forge its own path regardless of western criticism. – Bloomberg

The Biden administration on Monday signaled that it will continue to “hold China accountable” on technology-related concerns, though final decisions around its stance on social media app TikTok and telecom group Huawei have not yet been made. – The Hill

But in countries where the checks and balances are even more limited, the effects are amplified. The epitome of cyber surveillance is China, with its Golden Shield project, which has evolved into the “Great Firewall” system of internet controls. – Financial Times

Editorial: The contrast between Mr. Xi’s Monday sweet talk and the weekend Taiwan incursions is designed to throw the world off balance. The test for the Biden team is whether it will be tripped up by the feints toward international norms and comity that punctuate Mr. Xi’s pattern of regional aggression. – Wall Street Journal

Walter Russell Mead writes: It remains to be seen whether the administration will attempt to tone down the strong message sent by its early actions. The combination of the hard line on Taiwan and the genocide designation could be the foundation of a policy mix that is significantly more provocative than even some China hawks in the new administration wanted—and far more hawkish than the human-rights advocates supporting the genocide designation understood. – Wall Street Journal

Rushan Abbas writes: At a bare minimum, I hope the Biden administration ensures the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which passed with nearly unanimous bipartisan support and imposes sanctions on entities and individuals involved in these human rights abuses, will be enforced to the full extent. The Biden administration must also prioritize Section 307 of the Tariff Act — which outlaws forced labor imports — and ensure that thorough and effective enforcement is applied to every ban on products originating from the Uighur homeland. – Washington Post

Tim Culpan writes: Should Biden take up some of these proposals, he’d send a message that not only is he taking an interest in Taiwan but that he views it as an issue with support across both sides of Congress. A bipartisan Washington is not the united front Beijing would like to see. – Bloomberg

John Pomfret writes: This attack on entrepreneurs sets China back politically as well. Xi seems to have embraced Leninist logic essentially unchanged since the days of Mao: Only in times of crisis does the party loosen its grip, allowing more free enterprise and more freedom. It always does so reluctantly and then reverts to form. – The Atlantic

Russia

In his first comments since mass protests erupted across Russia over the weekend, President Vladimir Putin denied on Monday that he owns a billion-dollar palace on the Black Sea and called the demonstrations illegal and “dangerous.” – Washington Post

President Joe Biden has been quickly thrown into a high-wire balancing act with Russia as he seeks to toughen his administration’s stance against Vladimir Putin while preserving room for diplomacy in a post-Donald Trump era. – Associated Press

U.S. President Joe Biden will keep all options on the table as it considers responses to Russia’s detention of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday. – Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday the United States is concerned about Russia’s treatment of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny while also seeking an extension of the New START nuclear weapons agreement with Russia. – Reuters

But after the arrest of opposition activist Alexei Navalny prompted Saturday’s protests — the largest anti-Putin rallies in years — the Kremlin’s own heavy-handed crackdown risks misjudging public sentiment and legitimising a national movement against it much as Mr Lukashenko’s did, analysts say. – Financial Times

Editorial: The statement should be accompanied by actions. All those in the Putin regime who bear responsibility for the imprisonment of Mr. Navalny or the repression of protests should be sanctioned. Financial authorities in the United States, Britain and elsewhere should identify and, if possible, freeze looted Russian assets stashed in Western banks and real estate. At stake is not just Mr. Navalny’s movement, but the need for democracy to prevail in what has become a fateful new contest with autocracy. – Washington Post

Alexey Kovalev writes: Yet what happened on Saturday matters. Crackdown and coercion are no longer enough to discourage Russians from protesting: According to sociologists who studied Saturday’s demonstrations, at least 42 percent of all participants were first-time protesters. Mr. Navalny has clearly struck a chord well outside his regular circle of supporters. The Kremlin, its room for compromise limited, is likely to respond with further escalation. What that might lead to, no one can say. But one thing’s certain: It doesn’t bode well for anyone. – New York Times

Bret Stephens writes: How can Joe Biden move history toward the second version? By pursuing a foreign policy that puts dissidents first. […]It needn’t be that way. A dissidents-first foreign policy would immediately revive America’s moral leadership after its squandering under Trump. It would force our adversaries to choose between their material interests and their habits of repression. And it would provide a margin of safety and maneuver for the dissidents we’d one day like to see in power. As foreign policy doctrines go, it’s more than decent. It’s smart. – New York Times

Tom Rogan writes: The evidence of what happened to Navalny is clear. The Biden administration should therefore stop wasting time that Navalny might not have. Biden has good options — he can sanction FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov and threaten more wide-ranging economic sanctions if Navalny’s life or long-term freedom is jeopardized. Like all the top officials in Putin’s inner circle, Bortnikov has assets that he wants to protect from U.S. sanctions. But Psaki is deliberately misleading the public when she implies that the intelligence picture is unclear. – Washington Examiner

Gideon Rachman writes: In Washington, President Joe Biden has now broken with his predecessor Donald Trump’s studied indifference to the fate of democracy and human rights in Russia. The Biden White House has urged the immediate release of Mr Navalny and his supporters. The Kremlin will not listen. But US expressions of support for Mr Navalny and the protests will anger Mr Putin. One of the reasons that the Russian leader detested Hillary Clinton — and worked to defeat her — was the support that she expressed for anti-Putin demonstrators in 2012. – Financial Times

Africa

Pirates off Nigeria’s coast kidnapped 15 sailors from a Turkish-crewed container ship in the Gulf of Guinea on Saturday in a brazen and violent attack that was farther from shore than usual. – Reuters

An Israeli cabinet minister on Monday for the first time led an official delegation to Sudan to discuss moving forward on a U.S.-brokered deal in October to normalise relations. – Reuters

Since then, under a hybrid military-civilian transition, Sudan has set about trying to repair both its deep domestic wounds and its international relations. Multi-party elections are supposed to take place in late 2022. – Financial Times

Now that Bashir has been ousted, say foreign policy experts, the task is to re-establish relations with foreign capitals from Riyadh to Washington, without allowing outside actors undue influence over its internal affairs. For a nation flat broke and in desperate need of help, that is no simple task. – Financial Times

Officials in the Central African Republic say government troops have killed 44 rebel fighters who had surrounded the capital, Bangui, in an attempt to overthrow the new administration. – BBC

Somalia is marking 30 years of conflict. Specifically, it’s marking the moment the government of President Siad Barre collapsed in January 1991, setting Somalia on a rapid path to fragmentation and anarchy. – BBC 

Cybersecurity

In the months leading up to the November election, the social media platform Parler attracted millions of new users by promising something competitors, increasingly, did not: unfettered free speech. “If you can say it on the streets of New York,” promised the company’s chief executive, John Matze, in a June CNBC interview, “you can say it on Parler.” – New York Times

The messaging app Telegram has long been an engine of resistance and an annoyance for tyrants. Authoritarian leaders in Russia and Iran have tried to ban it. When protests broke out recently in Belarus and Hong Kong, Telegram was the glue that held democracy movements together in the face of violent onslaughts by powerful security services. – New York Times

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, publicly wrestled this month with the question of whether his social media service had exercised too much power by cutting off Donald J. Trump’s account. Mr. Dorsey wondered aloud if the solution to that power imbalance was new technology inspired by the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. – New York Times

Google has warned it has uncovered an “ongoing” state-backed hacking campaign run by North Korea targeting cyber security researchers. – Financial Times

Joshua Rovner writes: For years, critics of U.S. cyber security policy have called for more centralization. Government efforts are spread across many organizations, we are told, making effective coordination inefficient and ineffective. […]No real progress can occur without a clear whole-of-government effort, spearheaded by an official who can bear the brunt of presidential and congressional scrutiny. As Sen. Angus King put it, the government needs “one throat to choke.” – War on the Rocks

Long War

A terrorist stabbing attack was foiled in Samaria Tuesday morning, according to initial reports. – Arutz Sheva

In 2013, Nasser Muthana and Reyaad Khan left their lives in Cardiff to fight for Islamic State in Syria. Three months later Nasser’s younger brother Aseel also went out to join them. – BBC

Bennett Ramberg writes: Although offshore American forces could execute operations against jihadis — they failed in Somalia and Afghanistan but proved more successful in hitting ISIS in Libya — there is no substitute for an American counterterrorism ground presence working with locals to collect actionable intelligence. The result would allow U.S. homeland security to be the last layer of defense, rather than the first. – The Hill