Fdd's overnight brief

Iran

The Trump administration on Thursday imposed a new round of economic sanctions against Iran’s financial sector, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Tehran in the weeks leading up to the presidential election. – New York Times 

Instead, such was his stature in the Islamic Republic that it was Mr. Shajarian who told state media to stop broadcasting his voice. Mr. Shajaraian died Thursday at a hospital in Tehran at the age of 80, according to his son Homayoun, after battling kidney cancer for nearly two decades. – Wall Street Journal

Prominent Iranian human rights advocate Narges Mohammadi was released from prison late Wednesday after authorities commuted her 10-year sentence during ongoing concerns about her health. – Washington Post 

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused the United States of targeting Iran’s “remaining channels to pay for food and medicine” in the midst of the pandemic through new sanctions announced on Thursday. – Reuters

U.S. prosecutors have seized a network of web domains which they said were used in a campaign by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to spread political disinformation around the world. – Reuters

China and Iran reached a deal recently that will see approximately US$400 billion flow into the Persian nation over the next 25 years. That equals about $16 billion annually. All of the details of the agreement are not yet known, but it will involve investments in several sectors, including telecommunications, oil, gas, petrochemicals, railroads, banking, and harbors. – Arutz Sheva 

An Israeli singer of Persian heritage is set to release an album she made by working in secret with Iranian musicians, her long-held aspiration for artistic collaboration despite bitter animosity between the two states. […]The two countries consider each other arch-enemies, clashing at times in recent years, and both governments have arrested people on charges of spying. – The Guardian 

Sharing a frontier with both Armenia and Azerbaijan as they fight a bitter war over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh territory, Tehran is closely watching the conflict amid growing concern it could spill over the border. – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

On September 19, 2020, Hossein Shariatmadari, longtime editor of the Iranian regime mouthpiece Kayhan and a close associate of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote in the newspaper about the promise made by IRGC commander Hossein Salami to  U.S. President Donald Trump – i.e. that the IRGC would seek vengeance if a single Iranian was harmed. – Middle East Media Research Institute

We welcome the imposition of additional U.S. sanctions against Iran that target its financial sector, with key humanitarian exceptions. The continued maximum pressure campaign makes clear to the Ayatollah that there are consequences for his relentless quest to develop nuclear weapons. – Conference of Presidents

Michael Rubin writes: Just as Trump is wrong to assume that a policy’s origin during the Obama administration to be reason enough for automatic reversal, so too should Biden and his top aides recognize that resistance to Trump should not mean becoming blind to the Iranian regime’s abuse of universities and education exchange. Alas, their knee-jerk rejection of Trump risks empowering those who would use the gains of America’s education to contribute to programs geared to maim and kill. – Washington Examiner 

Assaf Orion writes: Perhaps most important, the Janah case exposed Hezbollah’s vulnerability to public uproar against its dangerous conduct. Israel and its allies should therefore increase political pressure on the group through more-frequent, credible, and unsettling exposure of its secrets, lies, and crimes—not just once every couple years at the UN General Assembly, but as part of a continual campaign. – Washington Institute

Turkey

The foreign ministers of Turkey and Greece met on Thursday for the first time since their dispute over energy exploration and territorial rights in the eastern Mediterranean, and agreed to hold bilateral talks on the issue, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. – Reuters

Northern Cyprus on Thursday reopened part of the beachfront of a resort abandoned since Turkey invaded the island in 1974, taking a step supported by Ankara but condemned by Greek Cypriots and causing concern internationally. – Reuters

Turkey issued an official notice for a four-day firing exercise around its Black Sea coast through Oct. 16. – Bloomberg

Turkish troops Thursday reopened parts of a Cyprus seaside resort that became a ghost town amid war in 1974, sparking controversy days ahead of an election in the breakaway Turkish north. The move at Varosha threatened to further inflame tensions in the eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey has been engaged in bitter maritime disputes with Greece and Cyprus. – Agence France-Presse 

Turkey’s pursuit of greater influence in the Caucasus, particularly in a region contested by ethnic Armenians and ethnic Turks, is unsurprising. – Foreign Policy 

Alexander Clark writes: An analysis of Turkey’s conduct in the ongoing Karabakh conflict is necessary to understand the depth of Erdogan’s cynicism and brutal power politics. Turkey’s use of mercenaries in Karabakh is a noteworthy chapter in the Turkish dictator’s neo-Ottoman expansionism. – The National Interest 

Seth J. Frantzman writes: Ankara judged that Varosha would be an easy place to provoke a new crises with the European Union and Cyprus. The abandoned beach area, full of hotels and buildings, could be easily and illegally opened and Ankara could show northern Cyprus residents that it stands by them. In provoking the news about Varosha the goal of Ankara is to show there is nothing that stands in its way. – Jerusalem Post 

Gönül Tol writes: To many, after almost two decades in power, Erdogan has never seemed more in control. In reality, however, he has never been weaker. He started off by establishing one-man rule, but has ended up with two-man rule instead — and the second man, the head of a party polling at just 6.5 percent, seems to be calling all the shots. – Middle East Institute

Iraq

In January this year he was killed in the same US drone strike that took out Iran’s top military commander, General Qassem Suleimani. By the time of his death the militias under his command, acting at the behest of Iran, were at the heart of the Iraqi establishment. In killing him, the US disrupted a fiendishly complicated set of power relations. It is on Iraqi soil, and not in Iran, that many fear the impact of the strike will be felt in the long term. – The Guardian

David Gardner writes: The present Iraqi prime minister is struggling against this bleak legacy and now is not the moment to abandon him. Leaving Mr Kadhimi in the lurch guarantees a return to the pursuit of factional advantage instead of the public good, and of zero-sum sectarianism rather than power-sharing. It will also reopen Iraq’s gates to a jihadi comeback in a country already struggling to stay alive. Iraqis deserve better. – Financial Times

Jonathan Spyer writes: Just over a year ago, there was deep concern in Israel at the possibility that Iran might supply missiles with the range to reach Israel to the KH-controlled areas in western Iraq. A number of Israeli raids took place in July and August against KH and other militia facilities. Since then, the issue has gone quiet. – Jerusalem Post 

Gulf States

Saudi Arabia is considering canceling OPEC plans for an oil output hike early next year, senior Saudi oil advisers said, as Covid-19 cases in many parts of the world rise and the expected return of Libyan crude threatens to swell global supplies. – Wall Street Journal

The United Nations on Thursday called for an immediate end to clashes near Yemen’s main port of Hodeidah after a surge in fighting that sources said have killed dozens of people despite a U.N.-sponsored ceasefire in place in the area. – Reuters

Saad Aljabri knows a lot of secrets. The former senior intelligence official in Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry was a valued partner of the U.S. government, a man who had access to troves of sensitive information about terrorism suspects, informants and the vast Saudi royal family. – NPR 

Ahdeya Ahmed al-Sayed, president of the Bahraini Journalists Association, said on Thursday that she expects journalists from her country to play a very important and crucial role in promoting normalization with Israel. – Jerusalem Post 

China

In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, activists and others called for a boycott to protest China’s treatment of Tibetan minorities and its human rights record at home and abroad. Beijing is now deep in planning to reprise its Olympic host role for the 2022 Winter Games. And again, it’s facing a chorus of condemnation over its mass indoctrination and labor program for ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang and its security crackdown in Hong Kong. – Washington Post 

Over the past few years there has been a fundamental shift in how the US thinks about China that spans the political spectrum, even if some of the recent rhetoric is partly a product of both parties not wanting to appear soft before the election. – Financial Times

The US national security adviser warned China on Wednesday against any attempt to retake Taiwan by force, saying amphibious landings were notoriously difficult and there was a lot of ambiguity about how the United States would respond. – Reuters 

Editorial: The simple truth is that the more the world sees of Communist China, the more it comes to dislike. For all its promises of investment and mutual benefit, people are realizing that China’s truest offer is one only of arrogant hegemony. Unless and until Xi’s regime starts showing the rest of the world the respect it deserves, China’s reputation will decline yet further. – Washington Examiner 

Kristofer Harrison and Celeste Ward Gventer write: The good news is that the policy solutions that could strategically disable Moscow or Beijing are the same ones that many have advocated for years to fight inequality, white-collar crime, bribery, and simple money-laundering. Confronting strategic corruption is also a politician’s dream issue: a populist domestic platform that tackles inequality, puts corrupt bankers and fat cats in jail, is hawkish on China and Russia, and helps demilitarize American foreign policy. – Offshore Initiative 

Derek Scissors writes: It is a cliché to say that getting our own house in order should always be the top priority, but it is also right. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is an economic predator, and stronger American responses, even closing certain sectors to China entirely, are overdue. These responses must be based on sound information, such as exactly how and where Chinese state ownership makes it impossible for Americans to compete. Not only is the US the world’s dominant economy, but it can be indefinitely. – American Enterprise Institute

Scott Livingston writes: China’s efforts to formalize CCP control of its commercial sector will have significant ramifications for international trade, forcing more liberal market economies to decide how much state intervention they are willing to tolerate in their trading partners. […]The fact that China has released this opinion at a time of heightened U.S. scrutiny over the government’s links to Huawei and TikTok suggests that China feels confident enough in its system that it is now prepared to advance and defend it on the global stage. – Center for Strategic and International Studies

South Asia

With medical workers and volunteers strained by the novel coronavirus, Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi asked for forgiveness in a televised speech this week, acknowledging that surging cases and deaths had led to a shortage of hospital beds. Yet in the same speech, Suu Kyi vowed to go ahead with elections on Nov. 8, despite the anxieties over public health in one of the world’s least-developed countries. – Washington Post 

A turf war raging between criminal armed groups in Rohingya refugee camps in southern Bangladesh has forced thousands of people to flee and at least eight have been killed in clashes in recent days, police and humanitarian workers said on Thursday. – Reuters

Pakistan’s counter-terrorism police on Thursday arrested two suspected militants on charges of collecting funds for outlawed charities of a radical cleric wanted by Washington for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. – Associated Press 

A Sri Lankan minister said Thursday that India has no moral right to interfere in the country’s internal affairs by insisting on power sharing with minority Tamils because New Delhi failed to fulfil its obligations under a 1987 agreement to disarm separatist rebels and ensure an end to Sri Lanka’s civil war. – Associated Press 

The de facto detention of 130,000 ethnic Rohingya in squalid camps in Myanmar amounts to a form of apartheid, a human rights group alleged Thursday in urging the world to pressure Aung San Suu Kyi’s government to free them. – Associated Press 

Tom Rogan writes: Pakistan, which holds itself up as an archon of Islamic democracy, has quite literally turned itself into a Communist Party of China press shop. But as Prime Minister Imran Khan receives his hard-earned Chinese investments, his people should ask themselves a simple question. – Washington Examiner

Russia

A series of crises in Russia’s neighbors is upending the Kremlin’s plans for deeper economic and defense ties with the former Soviet republics, leaving a vacuum for regional competitors such as China and Turkey to exploit. – Wall Street Journal

Russia said on Thursday that Kyrgyzstan had descended into chaos and that Moscow was obliged by a security treaty to prevent a total breakdown in the country, where rival groups have claimed power in post-election unrest. – Reuters

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny believes he was purposely poisoned by Russian intelligence officials working for President Vladimir Putin because the government saw him as a threat ahead of the country’s 2021 parliamentary elections. – Fox News 

On October 4, a short, jumpy video was released to social media purporting to show Chechen fighters in the conflict zone around Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region. […]But the 37-second clip was not filmed in Azerbaijan, RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service has determined, but in Crimea, the Ukrainian Black Sea region seized by Russia in 2014. – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Philip Stephens writes: Of course it is vital that the west acts to stop Mr Putin and, more important still, that it shows resolve in countering Mr Xi’s strategies of repression and coercion. But saving democracy? The way to do that is to fix the economic and social policies that have been stripping liberal societies of legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens. – Financial Times

George Barros writes: The Kremlin is orienting its Unbreakable Brotherhood 2020 military exercises on peacekeeping operations as part of its hybrid war in Belarus. The Kremlin-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) stated on October 7 that approximately 700 CSTO personnel will participate in annual Unbreakable Brotherhood exercises in Vitebsk, Belarus, from October 12-16. […]The Russian military considers deploying conventional forces under the cover of “peacekeeping” to be a key means within hybrid war. The Kremlin considers its ongoing campaign in Belarus to be a hybrid war and is likely using CSTO exercises to advance its campaign. – Institute for the Study of War

Seth J. Frantzman: The question now is whether Moscow can succeed in the southern Caucasus, or whether Ankara’s meddling and other agendas will undermine Putin’s decisions. Russia knows Turkey is practicing with the S-400 system this month and Russia is hosting the Egyptian navy in the Black Sea. These are tense and complex times. Russia’s chess game could come undone if Putin is not careful. – Jerusalem Post 

Africa

Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court upheld Thursday the detention of an alleged Sudanese militia leader charged with more than 50 crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Darfur conflict. – Associated Press 

A security official in Ethiopia’s Western Benishangul-Gumuz region says an attack this week killed 14 civilians and security forces killed 14 militia members. – Associated Press

The U.N. envoy for Mali urged people in the West African nation, who just lived through another military coup, to use a recently agreed to 18-month transition “to pull their country out of the hellish cycle” of coups that has left the country in crisis. – Associated Press 

The EU’s top diplomat arrived in the Ethiopian capital on Thursday hoping to inject fresh momentum into Europe’s plan for a new era of cooperation on digital, the environment and economic policy. He might have to wait a while longer. – Politico

The U.S Navy and Coast Guard remain committed to supporting and building the maritime security capabilities of its African partners, senior leaders from both services said in an Oct. 5 conference call. – USNI News

Emilia Columbo writes: The Mozambican government and security services need to start positioning themselves to act should ASWJ fall victim to one of these classic strategic blunders, but they will need assistance from experienced partners to do so. The United States, as Mozambique’s largest aid donor, can leverage programs that are already in place to energize Maputo’s nascent efforts at addressing the root causes of this conflict. […]ASWJ is not invincible, but it will be up to Maputo to demonstrate that is the case. – War on the Rocks

North America

The World Food Program was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a recognition of the critical work the United Nations agency does to prevent hunger around the world, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. […]The award is an acknowledgment of the central role the Rome-based organization plays in dealing with impoverished people caught in or fleeing from conflict. – Washington Post 

Storming the State Capitol. Instigating a civil war. Abducting a sitting governor ahead of the presidential election. Those were among the plots described by federal and state officials in Michigan on Thursday as they announced terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges against 13 men. […]The group that planned the kidnapping met repeatedly over the summer for firearms training and combat drills and practiced building explosives, the F.B.I. said; members also gathered several times to discuss the mission, including in the basement of a shop that was accessible only through a “trap door” under a rug. – New York Times 

 Far-right activists and paramilitary groups, emboldened by the rhetoric — and sometimes support — from state and federal leaders, are trying to sow chaos in the state of Michigan ahead of the 2020 election, state Attorney General Dana Nessel said in an interview with Business Insider. – Business Insider 

The U.N. Security Council met in its chamber at U.N. headquarters in New York for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York in March on Thursday, and despite wearing masks and being separated by plexiglass dividers, U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft said “It was so great to be home.” – Associated Press 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that Canada is preparing for potential “disruption” in the U.S. in the event of a disputed presidential election. – The Hill

Lawrence J. Haas writes: If Joe Biden defeats Trump next month, we’ll likely see another change in direction; the 2020 Democratic platform, which Biden presumably approved, calls for America to “rejoin and reform” the council. Frankly, neither approach has worked particularly well, for the council remains what it has been from the start—an odious, hypocritical and, in the end, all-too-embarrassing successor to its notorious predecessor. Whether a future U.S. reform effort will work any better is very much an open question. – American Foreign Policy Council

Defense

The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) announced Thursday that it had issued new guidance banning the use of agency grants to purchase drones and other unmanned aerial systems from foreign groups deemed threats. – The Hill

The Department of Defense (DOD) on Thursday announced it has designated $600 million for fifth generation, or 5G, wireless testing and experimentation at five military sites across the nation.  – The Hill

The Pentagon’s top general, quarantined after being exposed to Covid-19, assured Thursday that the military remains at the ready to defend the United States and allies. – Agence France-Presse 

U.S. Army Europe Commander Gen. Christopher Cavoli received his fourth star as the service plans to merge the command with U.S. Army Africa, the service’s secretary told Defense News in an Oct. 8 interview. – Defense News

Navy inspectors found serious technical issues across all three U.S. Navy ship classes being built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi in 2018 and 2019, according to an unclassified report sent to Congress earlier this year. – Defense News

One senator is still probing the Pentagon for answers on its long-delayed enterprise cloud contract, questioning if the technology requested two years ago is still relevant and asking how much the department has spent resolving related legal disputes. – C4ISRNET

The U.S. Department of Defense released its first enterprise data strategy Thursday with its top priority focused on how to harness the department’s data for joint all-domain operations. – C4ISRNET

Now that the Space Development Agency has selected four contractors to build its first 28 satellites, the organization is looking for a launch provider to ferry them into orbit. – C4ISRNET

The Navy’s ground-based testing site for the Aegis combat systems on Wednesday took delivery of its new air and missile defense radar array that will go on the next iteration of guided-missile destroyers, the service announced. – USNI News

Peter Suciu writes: For nearly twenty years, the U.S. military’s SOF have been engaged in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts, but now must rethink how to address the changing threats of the twenty-first century including a potential conflict with other great powers. – The National Interest 

Rhys McCormick writes: The transformation of the acquisition system currently taking place will likely also lead to other changes that are currently hard to foresee. However, these changes—both those that may be foreseeable and those that aren’t—will manifest in due time in future contract trends. – Center for Strategic and International Studies