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Hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough at its signing in July 2015, Irans nuclear agreement with leading members of the international communityformally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)has achieved some notable short-term successes, many in Irans favor. Most, not all, of Irans nuclear activities are either frozen or highly circumscribed. In exchange, Iran is reaping the benefit of receipt of billions of dollars in previously frozen assets as well as a return to international commerce where Europe and China, among others, are seeking to invigorate trade and investment with the theocratic regime. This will be a boon for Irans chronically mismanaged and struggling economy.

The bad news is that it is misleading to conclude that Irans nuclear ambitions have been shuttered or that those ambitions will no longer pose a threat to the security and stability of the Middle East or beyond. This is because the agreement has finite limits, ranging from 10 years to 15 years depending on the issue.

For the time being, Iran has incentives to abide by the agreements terms, beginning with its financial windfall and reintegration into the international community. None of that has lessened Irans fervor for supporting terrorism or the murderous regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A recent report from the highly credible Institute for Science and International Security takes note of a statement from Ali Akbar Salehi, the director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. According to the Institute report and quoting Salehi, Iran has the capability to initiate mass production of advanced centrifuges on short notice. Centrifuges are the machinery that enriches uranium and creates the fissile material needed to make a nuclear weapon.

While Iran may make the specious claim it has the right to do so in coming years, on practical grounds there should be no reason for Iran to devote resources to this activity if it does not intend, as it so claims, to pursue a nuclear weapons capability. Mass production of advanced centrifuges, if carried out, would give Iran a decided advantage if it wanted to shorten a rush to a nuclear weapon.

Similarly, Iran continues to develop its ballistic missile program, an element of its defense regime that was left unhindered in the nuclear negotiations except for the fact that existing United Nations sanctions on the missile program are to be lifted in about six years.

The capability to deliver nuclear weapons to targets is all important; Iran recognizes this requirement and makes no secret of its commitment to maintaining and advancing its program. At present, Iran has ballistic missiles capable of attacking targets throughout the Middle East and probably beyond.

In addition, Iran also continues to defy repeated international requests to come clean on suspect activities at the Parchin military facility where suspicions for years have been high that Iran carried out high explosives testing that can only be useful in developing a nuclear weapon.

Much of the international community would be pleased to see these and related questions not resurface but they are inconvenient truths that if left unaddressed may well lead to a future crisis.

The mechanism to take up these issues is the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. Most nations around the globe are IAEA members and they merit a clear understanding of Irans activities, in no small measure to convince them that the international community can deal with Iran successfully and that Iranian actions can be monitored credibly.

That conclusion cannot be reached with credibility until much more is known about the pace and scope of Irans nuclear and missile activities. Until those questions are resolved it is fair to conclude that Irans actions since the signing of the JCPOA are troubling and raise new suspicions.

Jack Caravelli served on the White House National Security Council staff from 1999-2000.Sebastian Maier is an associate with the London-based corporate intelligence firm GMTL.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Has Iran laid the groundwork to develop nuclear weapons on a moment's notice? - The Hill (blog)

However, there are serious concerns being expressed in the Pentagon that the US could be dragged into a wider regional conflict, not just with Syria but Iran.

Officials are privately worried that Iran's ongoing efforts to build an area of control stretching from Tehran to Beirut will eventually expand the US war by posing a security threat to US troops operating in southern Syria near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

In the last few weeks US forces have had to respond to Iranian backed Shia militias challenging US outposts and a garrison at At Tanf. The US military has recently expanded its presence in the area establishing several small outposts called "operating areas." These small bases are an addition to the main garrison at At Tanf where US troops are training local tribes to fight ISIS.

This is all adding to a growing sense of concern that the war against ISIS in southern Syria might inevitably escalate to see the US fighting the Syrian regime as well as Iranian-backed forces.

The stated mission of the US is to expand the presence of American troops available to train local forces to fight ISIS. At the same time the US is backing the effort to defeat ISIS in Raqqa in the north, whilst also focusing on the Euphrates River Valley as a key target after ISIS leaders fled the city.

To date, encounters with Assad regime forces and the Iranian-backed militias have been characterized as self-defense. Defense officials say it would take a major policy decision from President Donald Trump to expand the mission to challenge them, but the worry is more confrontations are becoming inevitable.

US military officials believe the Iranian-backed militias as well as Assad regime forces are attempting to move deeper into eastern Syria. The US also believes Assad regime forces are pushing to reach the city of Deir Ezzor.

At the same time, Iranian militias are trying to open a transit route across southern Syria as part of what the Pentagon is informally calling a new "Shia crescent" of influence from Iran all the way to the Mediterranean. If that effort succeeds it would create a route for Iran to ship weapons and supplies to Hezbollah and other terror groups. US officials believe this would pose a new threat to both Israel and Jordan.

But the forces the US is training in southern Syria near where militias are operating are also likely to head east towards the Euphrates River Valley between Deir Ezzor and Mayadin. Intelligence reports have indicated that several senior ISIS operatives have fled Raqqa and moved into the valley between the two towns.

The US believes the area is becoming an increasingly important to ISIS with bomb making operations possibly centered there.

US officials say three top ISIS officials have been killed by the coalition around Mayadin. That includes the May 31 airstrike that killed Turki Al Bin'ali, the chief cleric of ISIS. In a news release announcing his death, the Pentagon called him a "close confidant of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi" and a US official confirmed to CNN that Bin'ali moved in the highest circle of the organization. He was also linked to efforts to recruit foreign fighters and launch attacks "around the world."

The US also believes ISIS is continuing to work on developing both higher yield and miniaturized explosives that have been used on drones, as well as mustard agents in the Mayadin area.

As ISIS is forced into retreat, the potential flash points for confrontation between US-backed forces, Assad regime troops and Iranian militias are only likely to increase. This means that as the Trump administration weighs up whether to send more troops into Afghanistan, it is also going to have to make some tough decisions on the war against ISIS if the US wants to avoid being dragged into a wider regional war.

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US risks being dragged into regional war with Iran in Syria - CNN International

CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Saturday that US national security is threatened by Iran, which he described as the worlds largest state sponsor of terror.

Today, we find it with enormous influence, influence that far outstrips where it was six or seven years ago, Pompeo told MSNBC in an interview that aired Saturday. Whether its the influence they have over the government in Baghdad, whether its the increasing strength of Hezbollah and Lebanon, their work alongside the Houthis in Iran, the Iraqi Shias that are fighting along now the border in Syria certainly the Shia forces that are engaged in Syria. Iran is everywhere throughout the Middle East.

He also said North Korea poses a very real danger to US national security.

I hardly ever escape a day at the White House without the president asking me about North Korea and how it is that the United States is responding to that threat. Its very much at the top of his mind, Pompeo said, adding that the North Koreans are ever-closer to having the capacity to hold America at risk with a nuclear weapon.

He said he thinks disclosure of Americas secret intelligence is on the rise, fueled partly by the worship of leakers like Edward Snowden.

In some ways, I do think its accelerated, said Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from Kansas. I think there is a phenomenon, the worship of Edward Snowden, and those who steal American secrets for the purpose of self-aggrandizement or money or for whatever their motivation may be, does seem to be on the increase.

Pompeo said the United States needs to redouble its efforts to stem leaks of classified information.

Its tough. You now have not only nation states trying to steal our stuff, but non-state, hostile intelligence services, well-funded folks like WikiLeaks, out there trying to steal American secrets for the sole purpose of undermining the United States and democracy, he said.

Besides Snowden, who leaked documents revealing extensive US government surveillance, WikiLeaks recently released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIAs cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers. WikiLeaks previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are several other recent cases, including Chelsea Manning, the Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning. She was convicted in a 2013 court-martial of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning said she leaked the documents to raise awareness about the wars impact on innocent civilians.

Last year, former NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin III, 51, of Glen Burnie, Maryland, was accused of removing highly classified information, storing it in an unlocked shed and in his car and home. Court documents say investigators seized, conservatively, 50 terabytes of information, or enough to fill roughly 200 laptop computers.

Pompeo said the Trump administration is focused on stopping leaks of any kind from any agency and pursuing perpetrators. I think well have some successes both on the deterrence side that is stopping them from happening as well as on punishing those who we catch who have done it, Pompeo said.

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CIA chief: Iran, North Korea threaten US national security - The Times of Israel

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French journalist dies of injuries after reporting on Isis war in Iraq - The Independent

WASHINGTON In a highly unusual intervention, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to remove Iraq and Myanmar from a U.S. list of the world's worst offenders in the use of child soldiers, disregarding the recommendations of State Department experts and senior U.S. diplomats, U.S. officials said.

The decision, confirmed by three U.S. officials, would break with longstanding protocol at the State Department over how to identify offending countries and could prompt accusations the Trump administration is prioritizing security and diplomatic interests ahead of human rights.

Tillerson overruled his own staffs assessments on the use of child soldiers in both countries and rejected the recommendation of senior diplomats in Asia and the Middle East who wanted to keep Iraq and Myanmar on the list, said the officials, who have knowledge of the internal deliberations.

Tillerson also rejected an internal State Department proposal to add Afghanistan to the list, the three U.S. officials said.

One official said the decisions appeared to have been made following pressure from the Pentagon to avoid complicating assistance to the Iraqi and Afghan militaries, close U.S. allies in the fight against Islamist militants. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Foreign militaries on the list can face sanctions including a prohibition on receiving U.S. military aid, training and U.S.-made weapons unless the White House issues a waiver.

Human rights officials expressed surprise at the delisting, which was expected to be announced on Tuesday, the officials said, as part of the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.

A State Department official said the TIP report's contents were being kept under wraps until its release and the department "does not discuss details of internal deliberations."

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008, the U.S. government must be satisfied that "no children are recruited, conscripted or otherwise compelled to serve as child soldiers" in order for a country to be removed from the list and U.S. military assistance to resume.

In the lead-up to Tuesday's report, the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which researches the issue and helps shape U.S. policy on it, along with its legal office and diplomatic bureaus in Asia and the Middle East concluded that the evidence merited keeping both countries on the list, the officials said.

Officials said that although the report had been finalized there was always the possibility of last-minute changes.

BETRAYING CHILDREN

Human Rights Watch said removing Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, from the list would be a "completely premature and disastrous action that will effectively betray more children to continued servitude and rights abuses."

The decision also would put the Trump administration at odds with the United Nations, which continues to list the Myanmar military, along with seven ethnic armed groups, on its list of entities using and recruiting child soldiers.

"What's particularly astonishing is this move ignores that the U.N. in Burma says that it is still receiving new cases of children being recruited" by the Myanmar military, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Rights groups have long accused Myanmar of using child soldiers. Bordering both China and India, Myanmar is also of growing strategic importance to the United States at a time of increasing encroachment in the region by China, which has sought closer relations with its neighbor.

Iraq, which has received more than $2 billion in U.S. arms and training over the last three years, was added to the State Departments "Child Soldier Prevention Act List"in 2016. However, the flow of U.S. assistance has continued.

Former President Barack Obama handed out full or partial waivers regularly, including last year to Iraq, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan and others out of 10 countries on the list.

Last year's State Department report said some militias of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of mostly Shi'ite Muslim factions with ties to the Iraqi government and backed by Iran, "recruited and used child soldiers."

The report said that despite the PMF being funded by the government, Baghdad struggled to control all of its factions.

"The government did not hold anyone accountable for child recruitment and use by the PMF and PMF-affiliated militias."

Human Rights Watch said in January that it had learned that militias had been recruiting child soldiers from one Iraqi refugee camp since last spring.

The broader TIP report, the first of Trump's presidency, is sure to be closely scrutinized for further signs that under his "America First" approach there will be little pressure brought to bear on friendly governments, especially strategically important ones, for human rights violations at home.

The Obama administration, while more vocal about political repression around the world, also faced criticism from human rights groups and some U.S. lawmakers that decisions on annual human trafficking rankings had become increasingly politicized.

(Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski in Yangon and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler)

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LONDON Britain said 34 high-rise apartment blocks had failed fire safety checks carried out after the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze, including several in north London where residents were forced to evacuate amid chaotic scenes.

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Exclusive: Overruling diplomats, US to drop Iraq, Myanmar from child soldiers' list - Reuters