Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

Iran bears responsibility for recent drone attacks carried out by Houthi rebels on targets in Saudi Arabia, John Bolton, President Trump’s national security adviser, said Thursday. – Wall Street Journal

The threat from Iran is not over but quick action from the United States has helped deter it, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday. – Reuters

The U.S. State Department sought to quash speculation that the Trump administration is easing its clampdown on Iranian oil exports after a sanctions waiver program ended May 2, saying there was no softening in the American stance that any country buying Iran’s oil would be subject to penalties. – Bloomberg

Russia has rejected an Iranian request to buy S-400 missile defense systems, concerned that the sale would stoke more tension in the Middle East, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, including a senior Russian official. – Bloomberg

The United States could present evidence linking Iran to attacks on oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates earlier this month to the United Nations Security Council as early as next week, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday. – Al Jazeera

The United States will sanction any country which buys oil from Iran after the expiration of waivers on May 2, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said on Thursday. – Reuters

Iranians have begun rallies across the country to mark Quds, or Jerusalem Day, which will see demonstrations across the Mideast as the Trump administration tries to offer an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. – Associated Press

The Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, B-52 bombers and sophisticated air defense systems were rushed to the Middle East in early May because intelligence suggested an Iranian-led “campaign plan” taking shape to disrupt the region, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff said Wednesday. – USNI News

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Iran attacked oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) earlier this month in an effort to push global crude prices higher. – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Jason Rezaian writes: A bizarre scandal rocked Iran this week. Former Tehran mayor Mohammad Ali Najafi shot and killed his wife, Mitra Ostad. But it’s how authorities and the state media have handled the crime that has Iranians outraged. […]With this twisted version of reality TV, Iran’s regime has just demonstrated its shamelessness and depravity, offering a reminder of just how rotten it is. – Washington Post

Merrill Matthews writes: The Iranian government is rattling sabers once again, and the Trump administration is rattling back. In years past those tensions would have sent world oil markets into a panic. Not so this time around — at least not yet. And one important reason is the U.S. has become so dominant in crude oil and natural gas production and export. – The Hill

Syria

Syrian doctors and humanitarian workers voiced growing alarm at the plight of civilians in northwestern Syria this week, as fighting intensified in the nation’s last rebel-held province and hundreds of thousands of people fled north toward the Turkish border. – New York Times

It was looking to be a good year for farmers across parts of Syria and Iraq. The wettest in generations, it brought rich, golden fields of wheat and barley, giving farmers in this war-torn region reason to rejoice. But good news is short-lived in this part of the world, where residents of the two countries struggle to cope with seemingly never-ending violence and turmoil amid Syria’s civil war and attacks by remnants of the Islamic State group. Now, even in areas where conflict has subsided, fires have been raging in farmers’ fields, depriving them of valuable crops. – Associated Press

The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that Iran is withdrawing Hezbollah forces from Syria because of Washington’s pressure campaign against Tehran, including sanctions and military deployments. – Anadolu Agency

Israel

As presidential son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner visited Israel for meetings Thursday to bolster support for his Middle East peace initiative, he was met by political chaos, as the sudden prospect of a second round of Israeli elections muddied the plan’s long-delayed rollout. – Washington Post

Israel’s surprise elections have thrust one man and one issue into the spotlight: Avigdor Lieberman, a bitter right-wing rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who says he is trying to stop the country from becoming a religious state. – Wall Street Journal

After the spectacular collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to build a coalition threw Israel into an unprecedented do-over election, Israeli public attention on Thursday was glued to two politicians. […]That divide, between the ultrareligious right and the secular right, has for the moment eclipsed the old left-right divide in Israel. It proved to be Mr. Netanyahu’s undoing on Wednesday, his deadline to form a governing coalition, and could be critical in the next election, scheduled for Sept. 17. – New York Times

A Palestinian stabbed two Israelis in Jerusalem on Friday, wounding one of them critically, before being shot dead by police, an Israeli police spokesman said. – Reuters

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Thursday thanked Iran for providing his terror group the rockets it used to strike deep into Israel and warned the Jewish state that Tel Aviv would be struck again in response to any offensive against the Gaza Strip. – Times of Israel

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group on Thursday released footage showing what it claims is a drone belonging to its military wing hovering over an Israeli tank and dropping an explosive device in its vicinity. – Ynet

Editorial: Israel was founded as a secular, European-style state with a religious minority. In later decades, as in much of the rest of the world, religious traditionalism has become more prominent. That issue was suppressed while Israel was concerned above all with its survival. Mr. Netanyahu’s success in turning the country into a regional power and making Israelis more secure has made intra-Jewish divisions more salient. This messy culture war could define Israeli politics in coming years as much as the Palestinian conflict. – Wall Street Journal

Editorial: The Trump administration, meanwhile, will have little choice other than to put its peace plan on hold for a few more months — something that likely will be greeted with quiet relief by both Mr. Netanyahu and Palestinians. If Mr. Netanyahu somehow loses the new election, Mr. Trump will be deprived of one of his closest foreign allies, a leader who shares his polarizing political tactics and has even adopted his rhetoric, from “fake news” to “witch hunt.” Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu each are betting that the other will win reelection. If either is wrong, U.S.-Israeli relations could be in for a shake-up. – Washington Post

Daniel Gordis writes: With Israelis of all stripes now bracing for far-reaching and potentially painful conversations about the fragility of Israel’s democratic institutions, this would be a perfect time for Jewish Israelis to hear a different voice from their Arab fellow-Israelis. For the sake of both Israel’s Arabs as well as Israel’s democracy, one can only hope that someone will assume that mantle and engender a conversation both among and about Israel’s Arabs that has long been absent, but that could be more important now than it has ever been before. – Bloomberg

Steven A. Cook writes: Between now and September a lot of smart analysts will game out the Israeli elections and inform their readers and listeners of all the different ways in which Netanyahu is vulnerable. But upon the dissolution of the Knesset, an Israeli interlocutor—someone who dislikes the prime minister—sent me a message saying he cannot be hopeful for a different outcome. That is because Netanyahu, for all his faults both real and perceived, has kept Israel prosperous and safe. And that is what Israelis seem to care about most and why heading into a long, hot summer of crazy politics and electioneering, the prime minister continues to have the electoral edge. If Netanyahu is interested in a new campaign slogan, he’d be smart to consider: It could be worse. – Foreign Policy

Khaled Elgindy writes: If Palestinians hope to weather the coming storm, their best hope is to close ranks. Only by ending the highly corrosive political division between Hamas and Fatah can Palestinians begin to break the suffocating siege on Gaza. That will also enable them to be seen as a credible interlocutor on the regional and international levels, and potentially begin the process of forging a new national strategy. While Palestinian reconciliation may not be enough to forestall any impending disaster, in the context of continued division such a disaster is all but assured. If nothing else, the Palestinians should brace themselves for likely retaliation by the Trump administration if—or, more likely, when—the Manama workshop proves to be a bust. – Foreign Policy

Middle East & North Africa

A series of explosions shook the center of the northern city of Kirkuk Thursday, killing at least four people and wounding 23, Iraqi security officials said. – Associated Press

Nabih Berri, the powerful speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, reached for one of the ugliest antisemitic stereotypes in the book during a media interview on Thursday that was ostensibly about the maritime border between his country and Israel. – Algemeiner

The Kingdom of Jordan’s highest court has rejected a French appeal for the extradition of a suspect in a deadly attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris more than 30 years ago — raising further concerns that the stalwart ally of the West continues to offer safe haven to terrorists wanted by the courts of other countries, including the United States. – Algemeiner

Douglas A. Ollivant and Erica Gaston write: While no one doubts that Iran (and the United States) are able and willing to exert some influence over security actors in Iraq, these militias are still their own actors first and foremost. Our research shows that in most scenarios, domestic agency and the groups’ own political and strategic calculations explain their actions better than the simplistic narrative of external puppeteering. Overplaying that connection and the idea of Iran’s “proxies” will lead to further mistaken signals and escalating conflict, to the detriment of both U.S. and Iraqi security. – War on the Rocks

Giorgio Cafiero writes: For international actors seeking to help stabilize Libya, preventing the resurgence of ISIS is key. Doing so will require addressing the underlying root causes, but that seems impossible as long as fighting persists and the LNA seeks to achieve a military victory. Hifter’s offensive against Tripoli and fight with the GNA-linked Islamist militias have created new conditions on the ground that are heating up the conflict, resulting in myriad security, political, economic, and social problems that give ISIS fuel to sustain its fight. – Middle East Institute

China

Dong Shengkun survived June 4, 1989, with his life, but with little else. His decision to go to Tiananmen Square in the days and weeks leading up to the violent crackdown ended up costing him almost everything: his wife, his son, saying farewell to his father. It also cost him his job and any hope of a halfway decent job in the future. But Dong, who is now 59 years old, says it was worth it. – Washington Post

The newly published documents lay bare how after the massacre, party leaders quickly set about reinforcing a worldview that casts the party and China as menaced by malign and secretive forces. It is an outlook that continues to shape Chinese politics under Xi Jinping, the party leader facing off with President Trump in a trade war. – New York Times

Top American and Chinese defense officials will lay out rival visions for the Indo-Pacific region as they meet in Singapore this week amid a bruising global trade war, tensions over China’s push for technology leadership and the specter of stalled U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks. – Bloomberg

As trade tensions rise between the U.S. and China, the oil market is watching the progress of a Chinese ship loaded with Iranian crude to see whether it heads home with its cargo — in possible violation of U.S. sanctions. – CNBC

Jessica Chen Weiss writes: China uses coercion to dissuade other states from enforcing their legitimate rights and interests within their own coastal waters. A 2016 court decision completely nullified the nine-dash line as a basis for China’s maritime claims. That means China unequivocally has no right to prevent the Philippines from exploiting seabed resources within 200 nautical miles of its coast — or any reason to harass Philippine fishermen plying these same waters. This applies to other countries bordering the South China Sea. The results of the 2016 decision can help Washington consider ways of helping its allies and partners defend their coastal-state rights from China’s maritime gray zone actions. – Washington Post

John Pomfret writes: But flash forward to 2018. In ramming through a constitutional amendment doing away with term limits, Xi singlehandedly dismantled the architecture of political succession that Deng established in an effort to ward off internal party squabbles, which in communist China have always caused unrest in the streets. That and Xi’s unwillingness to groom a successor all but guarantee another political crisis and the very “chaos” that the Chinese Communist Party so deeply fears. – Washington Post

Nina Shea and Bob Fu write: The Pentagon estimates that up to three million Uighur Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang province. Beijing can’t do the same with 100 million Christians, but technology still enables mass repression. Police ordered facial-recognition cameras installed inside Zion, an unofficial Protestant megachurch in Beijing, prompting the pastor to close it. Priests have reported being pressed to provide police with parishioners’ socioeconomic data. This can influence their personal social-credit scores, which Beijing uses for behavioral control. – Wall Street Journal

Peter Morici writes: It is time to join the commercial cold war on China. The United States must fully implement the sanctions against Huawei and other technology pirates, implement a system of auction quotas that limit imports from China to the value of exports to China, and develop aggressive national strategies within advanced computing, space exploration, and artificial intelligence that ensure national survival. The real danger lies not from Beijing but rather in pressures from members of Congress who are not willing to accept higher prices for clothing and gadgets and lost farm exports and pass up the opportunity to make those an issue for 2020. – The Hill

South Asia

Modi won a landslide victory in last week’s national elections by appealing to voters’ sense of nationalist pride and casting himself as the only leader who could ensure India’s security and future aspirations. Now the hard part begins: delivering on his promises and meeting the heady expectations for his second term. – Washington Post

Pakistan’s army has sentenced a general to life imprisonment for spying and ordered the death penalty for a brigadier and a civilian officer convicted in the same case, a military statement said on Thursday. – Reuters

Sadanand Dhume writes: But although federalism may ensure that Mr. Modi does not quite become an Indian Vladimir Putin, it will do little to quell the fears of those who worry that the BJP will use its mandate to marginalize India’s Muslim and Christian minorities, empower Hindu zealots who espouse violence, replace scientific rationalism with Hindu mythology, and use tax authorities to bully and badger opponents. Mr. Modi may well prove his critics wrong by reining in party hotheads and focusing more on economic growth and less on divisive cultural issues. But until that happens, anxiety about what his mandate means cannot be dismissed. – Wall Street Journal

Muhammad Akbar Notezai writes: If these attacks continue, the CPEC’s chances of success will decrease, as will the possibility of Saudi-Iranian tensions on Pakistani soil. It is time for Islamabad to start treating the Baloch as stakeholders in the development of the Gwadar port, to make the CPEC successful. But unfortunately, Islamabad has always treated the Baloch as a problem, not a solution—and even increasing violence probably won’t change that. – Foreign Policy

Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will hold a summit meeting on June 29, when Putin visits Japan for a meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 nations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday. – Reuters

The United States believes Russia may be conducting low-level nuclear tests, a US intelligence official said on Wednesday, while the head of a body monitoring a global nuclear treaty said there was no sign of such violations by Moscow. – Reuters

Russia expressed support for Japan’s intention to play a role in helping ease tensions between Iran and the United States, an official in Tokyo said on Thursday after a meeting of Japan and Russia’s foreign and defense ministers. – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

A Russian social media network has taken down the event page for a “Miss Hitler” beauty pageant slated to take place later this summer after an appeal from an Israeli group, Channel 12 reported Thursday. – Times of Israel

Editorial: Democrats must stop whining and start acting. Russia’s 2016 election attacks were encouraged by President Barack Obama’s hesitant response to Russian aggression in Syria, Ukraine, and cyberspace. Those attacks escalated in 2016 as Obama showed he would not impose serious consequences on Putin. If Democrats want to prevent the same from occurring in 2020, they should act aggressively now. – Washington Examiner

United States

President Donald Trump acknowledged for the first time Thursday that Moscow helped him win the White House in 2016 — before retracting himself to launch a fiery attack on Robert Mueller and the Russia probe. – Agence France-Presse

Lawyers for the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue say the FBI has been discouraging witnesses from talking to the defense, undermining the suspect’s right to a fair trial. – Associated Press

Sixteen women alleged in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that they faced rampant gender discrimination at the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia, which they say continues to foster a “Good Old Boy Network” within its ranks. – Business Insider

Karlyn Bowman writes: The Center for American Progress recently released a new poll: “America Adrift: How the U.S. Foreign Policy Debate Misses What Voters Really Want.” Does it break new ground? […]In many areas, the poll shows continuity with surveys conducted over many years. In some areas, the similarities are impressive. – Forbes

Cybersecurity

Technology giants Apple, Google, Microsoft and WhatsApp have condemned a proposal by the UK’s intelligence agency to eavesdrop on encrypted communication as a “serious threat to cybersecurity” and a “violation of human rights”. – Al Jazeera

Cyber Command has a new deputy commander to help as the organization continues to define itself as an unified combatant command. Vice Adm. Ross Myers was named deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command May 27, approximately one year after he was named the organization’s chief of staff. At the same time, Myers earned his third star. – Fifth Domain

The county votes on electronic voting machines, which don’t provide a paper trail — something cybersecurity experts vehemently warn against. But those machines weren’t what caused the issue in November. Instead, the problem came from the computer system, known as an electronic poll book, that poll workers were using to check people in. Increasingly, more and more states and voting jurisdictions are using these systems to speed up and improve in-person voting. – NPR

Russian Twitter trolls have attempted to fuel the anti-vaccination debate in the U.S., posting about the issue far more than the average Twitter user last year, a study out of George Washington University has found. The “sophisticated” bots shared opinions from both sides of the anti-vaxxer debate, which took the U.S. by storm and prompted tech companies to crack down on the spread of misinformation surrounding vaccinations. – CBS News

Dave Weinstein writes: The need to balance security and privacy is greater in the digital age than ever before. Let’s not forget that Baltimore is a victim. It’s time for governments and agencies to stop blaming each other and unite against the attackers. – Wall Street Journal

Jim Harper writes: In a recent post, I cast doubt on the assumption that privacy legislation would actually improve people’s privacy. To be more precise, legislation might improve privacy slightly by restricting flows of information about people. That could be consistent with the stated preferences of many, but it may come at a greater cost to interaction, social life, and commerce than people realize, leaving consumers marginally worse off and still unprotected in many ways. – American Enterprise Institute

Yigal Carmon and Michael Davis write: Hateful and aggressive content is easily found online, and only a very few of those posting it, commenting on it, or sharing it actually plan to carry out attacks. However, the price society pays for such terrorist attacks is high – dictating a need for special efforts to thwart them. It has been shown above that in some cases this is possible if, among the recognized members of the “online pack,” we can identify those with a concrete intention to attack. In order to accomplish this, there is a need to intensively study the language that these individuals and groups use, to learn to identify the symbols and codes with which they communicate, and to gain familiarity with their sources of inspiration. In this way, it is possible to close in on imminent danger. – Middle East Media Research Institute

Jennifer Daskal writes: In a world in which even Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is now calling for increased governmental regulation of content online, the privacy consequences of the push to monitor speech cannot be ignored. Laws like Singapore’s set a deeply troubling precedent. – New York Times