Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

Over the 11 days of fighting this month, Tehran praised the damage being done to its enemy, and the state news media and conservative commentators highlighted Iran’s role in providing weaponry and military training to Palestinian militants in Gaza to hammer Israeli communities. – New York Times

Iran is expected to decide on Monday whether to extend a temporary agreement with international inspectors on access to surveillance camera images of Tehran’s nuclear sites, a spokesman said. – Associated Press

Iran’s hard-line parliament speaker said Sunday a temporary deal between Tehran and international inspectors to preserve surveillance images taken at nuclear sites had ended, escalating tensions amid diplomatic efforts to save the Islamic Republic’s atomic accord with world powers. – Associated Press

Iran said on Friday a provincial Canadian court has no jurisdiction to rule on a claim for damages over the crash of a Ukrainian passenger plane downed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards last year. – Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said the United States has not seen yet whether Iran will move to comply with its nuclear commitments in order to have sanctions removed even as ongoing talks have shown progress. – Reuters

As Iran gears up to resume oil exports once the United States lifts trade sanctions, former key clients in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan say they’ll wait for the U.S. green light before investigating terms under which they might buy Iran’s oil again. – Reuters

Just days after Israel accused Iran of providing drones to Hamas in Gaza, a factory where such drones are manufactured has fallen victim to a mysterious explosion. – Arutz Sheva 

Iran’s foreign ministry on Friday praised what it called the Palestinian Arabs’ “historic victory” after a ceasefire in Gaza took effect. – Arutz Sheva 

The Iranian government announced its latest UAV today, dubbing it the Gaza-class drone in honor of the recent round of hostilities between Gaza and Israel. The aircraft appears to be patterned after the United States of America’s Predator and Israeli Heron drones. – Arutz Sheva 

Iran’s head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force told his Palestinian Islamic Jihad counterpart Akram al-Ajouri that the recent war against Israel had “destroyed the pride of the Zionist army.” – Jerusalem Post

Editorial: A related illusion is that once the 2015 deal is revived, the U.S. and Iran can seek a phase-two deal that addresses Iran’s missile program and regional imperialism. But what leverage would the U.S. have to win Iranian concessions after it gives up the Trump sanctions? The Administration seems eager to accept even a flawed deal as a way to liberate the U.S. from its entanglements in the Middle East. But this will empower Iran and its proxies and make it more likely America is dragged back in—albeit in a weaker strategic position. – Wall Street Journal

Mike Waltz and Len Khodorkovsky write: Reviving a fatally flawed, outdated deal that strengthens the world’s top terrorist regime that calls for “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” should not be Biden’s objective. Strengthening U.S. national security and standing with U.S. allies should be. – The National Interest

Yochanan Visser writes: Iran was more than instrumental when it comes to the build-up of the rocket and missile arsenals of Hamas and PIJ. It is true that today the Gazan terrorist organizations are able to build their own projectiles. Even the Ayyash, Hamas’ medium-range missile with a range of 250 kilometers was built in Gaza, but Iranian assistance was crucial in this process. – Arutz Sheva 

Seth J. Frantzman writes: Iran’s Tasnim news says that the fuse lit by Hamas will become the “fire” for a new operation in the future. The report, reflecting the Iranian regime thinking, details how Hamas won the recent war by not losing. Indeed, Iran helped push this war, but was concerned that Hamas and its other proxies in Gaza would lose badly. Instead, they see surprising victory. The report says there are indicators to determine defeat or victory in war. Iran has weighed them and believes Hamas won. This matters because it means Iran and Hezbollah are not deterred in the next round against Israel. – Jerusalem Post

Ammar Al-Musarea writes: As such, in the event of a nuclear deal with Iran that goes without a multilateral parallel effort to stymy Iranian expansion, the United States will likely see a resurgence of terrorism and human rights violations in the region. […]It is therefore imperative that the United States engage its regional allies and capitalize on recent thaws in their relations, promoting multilateral efforts to manage Iranian expansion, with particular focus on Syria. – Washington Institute

Iraq

The Iraqi government is expected to bring home about 100 Iraqi families from a sprawling camp in Syria next week, a first-time move that U.S. officials see as a hopeful sign in a long-frustrated effort to repatriate thousands from a site known as a breeding ground for young insurgents. – Associated Press

A month after an explosives-laden drone targeted U.S. forces at an Iraq base, the top American commander for the Middle East says finding better ways to counter such attacks is a top priority, and the United States is still behind the curve on solutions. – Associated Press

Iran has hand picked hundreds of trusted fighters from among the cadres of its most powerful militia allies in Iraq, forming smaller, elite and fiercely loyal factions in a shift away from relying on large groups with which it once exerted influence. – Reuters

Middle East & North Africa

As the United States scales back its military presence across the Middle East to focus on great power competition with China and Russia, it risks giving those two countries a chance to fill the gap and expand their influence around the Gulf, the top U.S. commander for the region said Sunday. – Associated Press

The U.N. special envoy for Libya warned the Security Council on Friday that progress on the key issue of withdrawing mercenaries and foreign fighters from Libya has stalled and their continued presence is a threat not only to Libya but to the entire African region. – Associated Press

An Egyptian appeals court said Sunday it lacks jurisdiction to look into the Suez Canal Authority’s demands to uphold financial claims that led to the seizure of the cargo ship that blocked the waterway in March. – Associated Press

A Western Sahara independence leader at the centre of a diplomatic dispute between Rabat and Madrid must answer legal charges in Spain before leaving the country, Spain said on Sunday. – Reuters

Jordan’s King Abdullah stressed on Sunday the importance of translating the Gaza ceasefire into an extended truce, and said there is no alternative to a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. – Reuters

Lebanese President Michel Aoun did not intend to revoke prime minister designate Saad al-Hariri’s mandate when he wrote to parliament last week declaring that Hariri could not form a government, Aoun’s son-in-law said on Saturday. – Reuters

Kenneth R. Rosen writes: Northeast Syria is a crucial bulwark against IS, Iran, and potential Turkish aggression, providing a point of stability in a region often awash in chaos. […]Yet the United States has frequently jeopardized its influence in the area, most prominently when making withdrawal announcements. If the Biden administration fails to signal its confidence in local authorities and its clear intent to continue U.S. support, all of the gains that have been made there—from recapturing IS territory to bridging Kurdish gaps and holding back Russia, the Assad regime, and Turkey—will be lost. – Washington Institute

Emadeddin Badi writes: The coming phase of Libya’s transition will prove increasingly precarious for Turkey. For Ankara to sustainably secure its economic gains, it should resist the short-term benefits of buttressing militias and working with individual elites. Instead, Ankara should surmount the origins of its intervention and focus on supporting Libyan institutions. […]If Turkey continues on its current course, Libya’s security challenges will persist, and Ankara’s influence will wane, regardless of how hard it attempts to entrench itself in the country. – War on the Rocks

Barry Strauss writes: It’s not just about war. The Abraham Accords, and the larger promise of Arab-Israeli peace, may be the best development in the region in many years. Economic integration, missile defense and people-to-people relationships are all among the possibilities. These, along with continued sanctions pressure on Iran, offer a better promise of peace to the region than does a renewed nuclear deal with Iran. It’s not too late for the Biden administration to change course. – The Hill

China

An Australian writer and businessman is scheduled to face trial in Beijing next week on a charge of espionage, bringing to the fore one of the disputes that have sent relations between China and Australia tumbling into icy antagonism. – New York Times

While it has been known in broader strokes that United States officials considered using atomic weapons against mainland China if the crisis escalated, the pages reveal in new detail how aggressive military leaders were in pushing for authority to do so if Communist forces, which had started shelling the so-called offshore islands, intensified their attacks. – New York Times

Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory. – Wall Street Journal

A debate over how much to push back against the Chinese government has set off a conflict inside a prominent coalition that guides much of the world’s cotton production. – Wall Street Journal

China’s Zhurong rover set its wheels on the surface of Mars early Saturday, beginning a tour of the red planet that is expected to last 90 days. – Wall Street Journal

Australia said its citizen Yang Hengjun will be tried by a Chinese court on espionage charges on Thursday amid deteriorating relations between the countries. – Associated Press

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said that the 105 apps violated laws by excessively collecting and illegally accessing users’ personal information, according to a statement posted on its site Friday. – Associated Press

China’s leading diplomat will travel to Russia on Monday for security talks, the latest sign of deepening ties between Beijing and Moscow. – Financial Times

Beijing has rebuffed the Pentagon’s requests for talks between China’s top officer and the new US defence secretary, complicating bilateral relations at a time of heightened tensions between the world’s two most powerful militaries. – Financial Times

The top political leader of Tibet’s government in exile said on Friday that there is an urgent threat of “cultural genocide” in Tibet, and the international community must stand up to China ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. – Reuters

China will uphold the leadership of the Communist Party in Tibet to further its economic development, and guide Tibetan society in accordance to socialism, the region’s top official said on Saturday. – Reuters

Lawrence J. Haas writes: To thread the needle, the United States should let its athletes compete but do nothing more that would promote Beijing’s self-congratulatory spectacle and, by extension, legitimize its human rights abuses. Top U.S. officials should not attend the games, nor should our largest companies sponsor them. […]These games, however, offer an opportunity for U.S. national unity at a time when the country could really use one—a moment when, together, America’s public and private sectors can make a powerful statement on human rights. – The National Interest

Yaroslav Trofimov writes: Yet the move, and the fallout it has generated, highlight a key shift in U.S. foreign policy under the Biden administration: back to using human-rights issues—and the values that bind the U.S. and its Western allies together—as a tool in America’s strategic effort to keep an assertive, resurgent China from upending the international order. The difficulty is that a number of important allies against China, especially in Asia, have troubling human-rights records of their own. As with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the U.S. once again faces the dilemma of reconciling its strategic needs with the principles that it proclaims in grappling with its chief global rival. – Wall Street Journal

Asia

Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared in person at a court hearing on Monday for the first time since her government was overthrown by the military in a Feb. 1 coup, her lawyer told Reuters. – Reuters

The Chinese-claimed island and Beijing have repeatedly sparred over the pandemic since it began. – Reuters

Taiwan criticised on Monday what it called World Health Organization (WHO) “indifference” to the health rights of Taiwan people and for capitulating to China after the island failed to get invited to a meeting of the WHO decision-making body. – Reuters

Samoa’s political crisis intensified on Monday as the leader of the opposition party held a ceremony to form government outside a locked parliament after the incumbent prime minister refused to cede power. – Reuters

The Philippines and China held “friendly and candid” talks on the South China Sea, the Philippines’ foreign ministry said on Saturday, days after the minister ordered Chinese vessels out of the disputed waterway in an expletive-laced tweet. – Reuters

The European Union on Sunday denounced a proposal by Myanmar’s junta-appointed election commission to dissolve deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which overwhelmingly won the general election in November. – Reuters

Fighters opposed to Myanmar’s military junta fought with troops in the east of the country on Sunday and claimed to have killed more than 13 members of the security forces, captured four and razed a police station, local media said. – Reuters

Hong Kong said on Friday its suspension of operations at its Taiwan representative office was motivated by Taipei’s “gross” interference in internal affairs, including with its offer to assist “violent” protesters, accusations Taiwan rejected. – Reuters

The first operational deployment of Britain’s flagship aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to Asia will show countries such as China that Britain believes in the international law of the sea, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday. – Reuters

More than a thousand Muslims rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia’s capital on Friday to denounce American support for Israel and demand an end to Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. – Associated Press

Europe

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko scrambled a jet fighter to force a Ryanair commercial aircraft to land in Minsk, where a Belarusian journalist and opposition activist was detained. – Wall Street Journal 

A weeklong manhunt for a Belgian soldier whom authorities suspect of planning a terrorist attack is highlighting concerns over right-wing extremism in Western militaries. – Wall Street Journal

North Macedonia received support in its bid to begin European Union membership talks from Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia, a day after Bulgaria said it planned to continue to exercise its veto to block the small Western Balkan nation. – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Ukraine has stepped up its pressure on Washington over the contentious Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, appealing to the US Congress to maintain sanctions against the project. – Financial Times

Corporate lobbyists have scored a big win in Brussels after the European Commission was forced to delay a landmark proposal on making companies more accountable for human rights and environmental abuses in their supply chains. – Politico

The U.S. is definitively not interested in attempting to purchase Greenland, abandoning an effort floated by former President Trump as “a large real estate deal.” – The Hill

Max Boot writes: The force-down of the Ryanair flight must be seen in this perspective — not as an isolated incident but as part of a pattern of dictators testing the West with ever-greater brazenness. That makes it all the more imperative that the European Union and the United States do more than issue ritualistic denunciations of Lukashenko’s air piracy. Lukashenko must pay such a high price for this aggression that it will give pause to other tyrants and start to mend the tattered fabric of international law. – Washington Post

Michael Peel writes: Other outside pressures have also led the Europeans to conclude they need to expand their military reach. The US has long wanted them to spend more on their armed forces and take more responsibility to help stabilise countries near its borders, such as Ukraine and Georgia. At the same time, the departure of the UK from the EU has removed a historical obstacle to greater military co-operation between member states. The EU’s emerging new military posture includes the possible revival of a rapid-reaction force to intervene in international crises. – Financial Times

Pablo Pardo writes: The other result could be a PP that abandons its Christian-democratic roots to adopt a more nationalist stance—following the example of the British Conservative Party, which adopted many of the far-right UK Independence Party’s positions, or the U.S. Republican Party, which morphed into a nationalist-populist movement under former President Donald Trump. […]The refugee crisis triggered by Morocco this week may well end up turning Spanish politics more nationalist, populist, and anti-immigrant. – Foreign Policy

Dalibor Rohac writes: Those who wish to hear the EU to speak with one voice are correct that the principle of unanimity on foreign and security matters makes it impossible to arrive at clear-cut decisions in real time. Yet, they ought to be careful about what they wish for. Sometimes no voice at all, or a plethora of contradictory voices, might be preferable to a voice that would have been as blatantly wrong as in the present case if the dominant European narrative had its way. – Brussels Report

Gabriel Mitchell writes: Greece and Cyprus’ association to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has changed in recent years, however they can play a constructive role in improving on-the-ground conditions in the Palestinian territories as well as supporting regional and international initiatives that encourage Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. […]There are countless, smaller matters concerning the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations that have yet to be resolved and could benefit from external engagement. Future mediators should include Greece and Cyprus amongst the select number of international actors that can play a modest role in advancing the cause of peace. – Middle East Institute

The Americas

Colombia is coming under international pressure to halt what diplomats and human-rights advocates say is an unprecedented and ruthless police crackdown on citizens during three weeks of sometimes-violent protests in which police have sporadically been targeted. – Wall Street Journal

Amnesty International named one of Cuba’s leading dissidents a “prisoner of conscience” on Friday, saying state security appeared to have him under supervision and incommunicado at the hospital where authorities admitted him nearly three weeks ago. – Reuters

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is pulling aid from El Salvador’s national police and a public information institute and will instead redirect the funding to civil society groups, the agency’s head said in a statement on Friday. – Reuters

William M. LeoGrande writes: An effective Cuba policy requires a realist mindset that recognizes, once and for all, Washington’s inability to impose its will on Cuba. Policymakers need to give up the illusion that sanctions will produce victory, and get about the hard work of engaging with a regime that we may not like, but that is not going away any time soon. – The National Interest

Daniel F. Runde and Amy Doring write: Using the Biden administration’s strategy toward Central America as a framework, investment in the Panama Canal can fall under efforts to enhance security and strengthen regional transparency to bolster strong governance and the rule of law. […]The integration of the Panama Canal into a broader Central America strategy will require increased U.S. engagement with Panama itself, with the added benefit of rivaling China not only in the Canal but in the broader region. – Center for Strategic and International Studies

Cybersecurity

German hospitals may be at increased risk from hackers, the head of the country’s cyber security agency said on Saturday, following two high-profile digital attacks this month on the Irish health service and a U.S. fuel pipeline. – Reuters

Two prominent aerospace industry groups are cooperating on cyber information sharing, awareness, education, and outreach to improve the security of space operations. – Breaking Defense

Daniel N. Hoffman and Shawnee Delaney write: Mitigating the risk of malicious insider threats requires effective employee lifecycle management: hiring people who are a good fit for the enterprise and onboarding them with proper training; continuing through the employment phase with training and awareness; tracking of red flag indicators; and a robust employee assistance program. – The Hill

Peter Pry writes: The problem may be that there are too many lawyers and non-expert bureaucrats in charge of national preparedness for EMP and cyber warfare who lack deep technical expertise. […]Today what is urgently needed are EMP and cyber warfare experts to run another “Manhattan Project” to quickly protect America’s critical infrastructure. Their maxim should be: “Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!” – The Hill

Michael R. Czinkota writes: We need an annual event devoted to catching up. That time would help us to see and test the shortfalls in our understanding of processes. Flipping a switch or pushing a button should alert the system that attention is needed. Those on the controls need to know why they have just undertaken a measure and what it does. We need to remember what we may have forgotten. We must recall with a personal, replicable event the rationale, causality and linkages of our actions. Doing so will greatly strengthen our capabilities to plan, understand and reduce risk exposure. – The Hill

Kathryn Waldron and Tatyana Bolton write: If Biden truly wants to protect our critical infrastructure, CISA will need additional funding and staff to help address new tasks. The Colonial Pipeline hack proves that any sector can suffer the effects of a cyberattack. Modernizing our infrastructure without focusing on cybersecurity is simply doubling down on the mistakes that have left our nation’s systems so defenseless. If the administration wants our country to become more resilient, then it’s time for it to put its money where its mouth is to enact real change. – The Hill

John Rossomando writes: Artificial Intelligence could offer the Pentagon more effective means for detecting and countering attackers, identifying attacks in progress, and possibly neutralize them. U.S. Cyber Command also is developing offensive cyber capabilities. In the end, the U.S. government must slash the bureaucracy and foster improved cooperation to secure the nation’s military and civilian infrastructure. – The National Interest

Long War

A former FBI analyst with top-secret security clearance was indicted this week on charges that she illegally took numerous national security documents, including materials related to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and kept them in her home over the course of more than a decade. – Washington Post

Nigeria’s military is investigating reports that the leader of militant Islamist group Boko Haram may have been killed or seriously injured following clashes with rival jihadists, an army spokesman said on Friday. – Reuters

NATO will continue to train Afghan special forces outside the country after it winds up 18 years of security work in conflict-torn Afghanistan in coming months, the military organization’s top civilian official said Friday. – Associated Press