In Saudi, Biden Sees ‘Complex Challenges’ As Putin Prepares Iran Trip

According to a decree issued by Ali Khamenei on Saturday, Mohammad-Reza Modarresi Yazdi and Mehdi Shabzendedar Jahromi were also reinstated as the Islamic sharia law experts in the body, in charge of checking legislation approved by the parliament with the Constitution and sharia, and approving the candidates in various elections. 

The council -- also called Constitutional Council – is composed of six Islamic faqihs (experts in Islamic Law) to be selected by the Supreme Leader, and six jurists, from among the jurists nominated by the Chief Justice, who, in turn, is also appointed by the Supreme Leader. They ensure the compatibility of the legislation passed by the parliament with sharia and the Constitution.

The Council is charged with interpreting the Constitution, supervising elections, and approving of candidates for the Assembly of Experts, the President and the parliament. But in fact, critics of the council say that it is simply a tool under Khamenei’s control who engineers elections by having the institution reject candidates. 

Jannati has also been the chairman of the Assembly of Experts - which is in charge of selecting a Supreme leader since 2016, and is a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, tasked with resolving differences or conflicts between the Majlis and the Guardian Council. 

In 2020, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Jannati, along with four other members of the council for preventing free and fair elections in Iran.

The document was inked between Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud and Iraqi Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar on Friday, July 15, ahead of Saturday's Jeddah summit of leaders of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council member states, and leaders from Jordan, Egypt and Iraq and the United States.

Signed between Saudi Electricity Company and the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, the electrical interconnection will link Arar in northern Saudi Arabia to Yusufiya near Baghdad and have a capacity of 1,000 megawatts and a voltage of 400 kilovolts, with a length of 435 kilometers.

The project constitutes a step to establish a regional market for electricity trade as the Persian Gulf Interconnection Authority also signed a contract to connect its network to the electricity grid of southern Iraq. This contract includes construction of lines from the authority’s substation in Kuwait to the al-Faw station in southern Iraq to supply it with about 500 megawatts of energy from the Persian Gulf countries. Construction work will take about 24 months with a total transmission capacity of 1,800 megawatts.

Iraq has been working with Saudi Arabia on electricity sharing since at least 2020, and in January, they signed a memorandum of understanding on connecting their power grids, prompted by Iran cutting its electricity and gas exports to Iraq.

Despite its immense oil and gas reserves, Iraq remains dependent on imports to meet energy needs, especially from neighboring Iran, which currently provides a third of Iraq's gas and electricity needs. 

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet tweeted on Friday to hail the historic conviction of a former Iranian official for his role in the 1988 summary executions of political prisners. 

She also called on other countries to “use universal jurisdiction to bridge the accountability gap for serious crimes and ensure truth and justice.”

The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, also praised the decision for the Iranian prosecutor and prison official, saying, “The process and verdict in Sweden constitute a landmark and important leap forward in the pursuit of truth and justice for a dark chapter in Iranian history. It is also a clear signal that denial, despite substantive evidence, and impunity can no longer be tolerated.”

“I urge other States to take on similar investigation and prosecution of serious human rights violations in Iran using principles of universal jurisdiction,” he added, reiterating calls for accountability for the summary executions and enforced disappearances in 1988. “However, the events continue to be denied by Iranian authorities. I hope this verdict is a first step towards full truth, justice and compensation for victims, their families and civil society organizations that persist in their demands for justice”.

Amnesty International had also lauded the decision earlier, saying the sentence “sends an unequivocal, and long overdue, message to the Iranian authorities that those responsible for crimes against humanity in Iran will not escape justice.

The support for the government’s ever-tightening hijab rules came after a July-12 campaign by women’s rights advocates for a day without headscarves, dubbed “NO2Hijab”.

Ahmad Khatami who often leads the prayers in Tehran said on Thursday in Qeshm Island in southern Iran that many criticize Iran's hardliners for ignoring astronomical salaries and hefty embezzlements of state officials and minimizing Islamic values to covering women's hair.

He said "a sin is a sin whether it is showing a flock of a woman's hair or stealing public funds. Both not wearing the hijab and stealing from the public are sins." Khatami further charged that those who do not respect compulsory hijab are not devoted Muslims. While making the statement, he probably did not realize that in most Muslim countries governments do not impose hijab on women.

He claimed that "hijab is a social problem all over the world. It is not an individual responsibility so that some people could skip fulfilling." Khatami added that not observing the compulsory hijab rule leads to the decline of family values and creates social insecurity.

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Criticizing those who say there is no official law against compulsory hijab in Iran, Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said that the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution passed 300 articles of regulations in 2007. He said "Not covering women's hair is an idea propagated by the enemies of the revolution and the Islamic regime.

On Friday, imams in tens of Iranian cities including Mashhad, Gorgan, Hamadan and Esfahan promoted the party line about compulsory hijab and criticized the campaign against compulsory hijab as an action advised by Westerners. In Gorgan, Kazem Nourmofidi, the city's Friday prayers imam and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative to Golestan Province said in a comment with an implicit threat about cutting payments to women with bad hijab that women who work for the government and are paid by the government should observe the compulsory hijab rules more rigorously.

Meanwhile, in a bot-assisted campaign on social media, Iran's hardliners "amplified" and "trended" the Persian hashtags "Chaste Iran" with more than 56,000 tweets and "Gem of Chastity" with over 15,700 tweets. This comes while many Iranians on social media supported last week's campaign against compulsory hijab. Some of them on Friday morning harshly criticized former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi who spoke in support of compulsory hijab in a rare public appearance from his home where he has been under house arrest for 11 years for opposing the rigged presidential election in 2009.

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Another reformist figure who came out in support of compulsory hijab, at the same time criticized the government's chastity squads for lining up "bad-hijab" women and taking their photograph like criminals. Former vice president for women affairs Massoumeh Ebtekar also claimed that Khamenei is against using violence against women and further opined that the Iranian Constitutional Law is silent about the issue of hijab.

In a move probably to cover herself for her minimal criticism of the government, Ms. Ebtekar, one of the 1979 hostage takers at the US Embassy in Tehran, said the policy to punish women for not wearing the compulsory hijab is a legacy of former ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration.

The White House released a report on Saturday as President Joe Biden was about to hold a meeting with the leaders of six Persian Gulf countries, plus Egypt, Jordan and Iraq in a regional summit.

Iran began showcasing the Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 drones – both capable of carrying precision-guided missiles -- to Russia at Kashan Airfield south of Tehran in June. 

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan disclosed satellite photos of drones in flight during the Russians' visit as Iran was showcasing its weapons-capable UAVs. “This suggests ongoing Russian interest in acquiring Iranian attack-capable UAVs," he said. 

On July 11, Sullivan revealed that Iran is preparing to train Russian personnel to use its drones perhaps as early as this month, adding, “Our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline.”

Yevheniia Kravchuk, an official of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s political party, told Iran International on July 12 that the news has shocked Ukrainian officials, noting that Tehran’s decision would lead to the death of more Ukrainian civilians.

Fars News highlighted Friday a phone conversation between Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Ukrainian counterpart Dymytro Kuleba, in which the Iranian dismissed claims that Tehran was preparing to send drones to Moscow to help its military effort.