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Iran President Hassan Rouhani give a speech inside the Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak office during official visit in Putrajaya, Malaysia, on Oct. 7, 2016Mohd Samsul Mohd SaidGetty Images

Zeinabs son Bahman has been studying for a PhD in Virginia since 2014. So when the chance came to visit him this January, she leapt at it. She applied for a visa at the U.S. consulate in Dubai via a travel agency in Irana common way to obtain documentation.

That's where her passport was, ready to be processed, when Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning Iranians and nationals of six other majority Muslim countries from the U.S. was signed. Her dreams of seeing her son have vanished. "I was so, so happy and now I am so, so sad," says the 60-year-old, who now faces separation from her son until he finishes his studies in two years. "Everyone always said America was the beacon of freedom, but after this I'm not so sure."

Thousands like Zeinab who did not want to give her last name for fear of impacting her son's status in the U.S. feel personally targeted by Trump's order, especially as relations between the two countries had experienced an uptick since the nuclear deal in 2015 between Iran and 6 major world powers including the United States.

Now those improved relations are under threat, as Iran's conservatives see the order as an opportunity to score political points with only months to go before a presidential election. Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, an MP and part of the loosely knit coalition of hardliners and conservatives called Principalists, said it violated the terms of the nuclear deal he and others like him are highly critical of. Any action by America that prevents the creation of appropriate political and trade relations after the nuclear deal is a direct violation of it, he was quoted as saying by the Tasnim News Agency on Monday.

Irans moderate President, Hassan Rouhani, who is seeking re-election, took a more cautious approach and only reminded everyone of the futility of building walls between nations perhaps mindful of the fragility of a nuclear deal which he has staked his presidency on, but that Trump has promised to tear up:

Rouhanis muted response prompted his political opponents to take swings at his moderate international policy, which was based on his campaign promises of rapprochement with Western powers. Mr. Rouhani, Trump wont understand your metaphors on walls, I propose you speak to him as roughly as you speak to your internal critics, said Ezzatollah Zarghami, the former head of Irans state TV during Ahmadinejads presidency and a critic of Rouhani.

This government had promised to bring back honor to the Iranian passport, not only has that not happened but America is treating Iranians as a colonized nation, Akbar Ranjbarzadeh, another MP from the Principalist faction, said according to the semi-official Fars News Agency on Jan. 26.

Rouhani swept to a victory in the 2013 elections on a platform of upheaving the economy and better relations with the world. He had hoped that the nuclear deal, which led to the lifting of stringent sanctions imposed on Iran, would help him achieve both but the average Iranian has yet to see a meaningful effect from the deal on their livelihoods.

Now, he's trapped between a rock and a hard place. His foreign minister Javad Zarif has promised reciprocal measures, but should Rouhani do so too harshly he runs the risk of Trump moving to nullify his most significant achievement in office.

This executive order is an insult to Iranians, the government must definitely respond to this act, says Mohammad Marandi, a political analyst and professor at Tehran University, But it is important that the world sees that Iran, unlike the Trump administration, is behaving in a responsible and moral manner.

The nuclear deal , with its promise of roaring global trade and international investment in Iran as well as the sight of Iranian officials meeting and negotiating as equals with their American counterparts after 37 years of non-existent relations, was expected to help Rouhani cruise to a victory in his re-election bid in May.

But with the visa ban in place now and more hostile actions by the Trump administration highly possible, the elections seem wide open. In many instances Rouhani has not achieved the results he had hoped for and promised in his first term and Trumps actions will certainly have a detrimental effect on this, Marandi said.

Even as Iranians like Zeinab come to terms with being denied entry to the U.S., perhaps few will feel as personally targeted by the order as the country's President.

More:
Iran's Rouhani Left Exposed by Trump's Travel Ban - TIME

Iran Refuses to Confirm Conducting Missile Test New York Times TEHRAN, Iran Iran's foreign minister on Tuesday refused to confirm whether his country recently conducted a missile test, saying the Iranian missile program is not part of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The White House said on Monday that ... and more »

Read more from the original source:
Iran Refuses to Confirm Conducting Missile Test - New York Times

There are many things that could be said about Trumps travel ban, and most of them have already been said in multiple venues, including by TACsown Daniel Larison. I just want to highlight again one item: nearly half of those affected by the ban come from Iran, a country that is not experiencing Islamist violence, that is not producing large numbers of refugees, and from which we have no particular reason to suspect terrorists might be planning to sneak into America.

I can think of legitimate reasonswhy Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan were not included (all major regional allies whose cooperation we need), as well as Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and Russia (at that point, you might as well ban the world), all of which have produced home-grown Islamist terrorists who might travel to America or already have. Those reasons do tend to undermine the argument that, even if it had been rolled out in a more prudentand less gratuitously-cruel manner, the ban was a sensible way to protect American security but letsgrant that being extra cautious about people coming from a war zone isnt obviously crazy, and that we should be able to argue like civilized people about how to balancehelping people facing death versus protecting ourselves from wolves who may be hiding among the sheep.

But it seems to me that anyone arguing with a straight face that the ban was about protecting America from terroristsshould be arguing among other things that Iran doesnt belong on the list. Yet this is the only mention of Iran in David Frenchs defense of Trumps order (which is probably the best defense Ive read so far):

[T]he order imposes a temporary, 90-day ban on people entering the U.S. from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. These are countries either torn apart by jihadist violence or under the control of hostile, jihadist governments.

Thats it. Iran is a hostile, jihadist government so we shouldpresume all Iranians are a security risk.

This is whyIm going to continue to assume that a primary reason for the ban in the first place was to provoke Iranian retaliation,with the ultimate goal that poisoned relations will eventually provide a pretext for war.

Regular readers know I was very clear in calling out the Democratic candidates enthusiasm for conflict with Iran. I have zero reason to trust that this administration is any less enthused, and I interpret their actions accordingly.

Originally posted here:
Why Is Iran Part of the Ban? - The American Conservative

Bloomberg

Netanyahu: Iran missile test must not go unanswered BBC News Israel's prime minister has accused Iran of carrying out a missile test in "flagrant violation" of a UN security council resolution. Benjamin Netanyahu said he would raise renewing sanctions when he meets US President Donald Trump in February. Iran has ... Iran will be a key topic when Netanyahu visits TrumpNew York Post Netanyahu to Discuss Renewed Sanctions on Iran With TrumpBloomberg Netanyahu, Trump to Meet February 15; PM to Urge New Iran Sanctions After Missile TestHaaretz all 496 news articles »

See the original post here:
Netanyahu: Iran missile test must not go unanswered - BBC News

The executive order Trump signed late Friday puts a temporary moratorium on travel from seven countries while encouraging an effort to tighten the countrys screening of potential terrorists.

An MIT mechanical engineering student from Iran was among those barred from the United States on Saturday by President Trumps travel ban, prompting an outcry from the MIT community and thrusting her into a fiery national debate in Washington.

Niki Mossafer Rahmati, a junior who has a multiple entry student visa, had been trying to return to MIT after winter break, but was blocked from boarding her connecting flight from Qatar, along with about 30 other Iranians, she wrote on Facebook.

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This will not secure the borders from terrorism and illegal immigrants. It will only increase racism in the American society, she wrote. The president is trying to make Islamophobia a norm and policy by which he wants to lead the country. There has not been a single terrorist activity from those 7 countries listed above, in the US.

A member of Sigma Kappa sorority, Rahmati is executive vice president of the MIT Panhellenic Association, and volunteers with Camp Kesem, an organization for children whose parents have cancer, according to a Facebook page launched by her supporters called Bring Niki Back. Her friends and sorority sisters held her up as an active member of the community and launched a phone bank to Congress and an online petition demanding that she be allowed to return. They also reached out to US Senator Elizabeth Warren, who cited Rahmatis story, among others, on the floor of the US Senate Monday night as she challenged the notion that the travel ban would make America safer.

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None of these people are criminals. None of these people are threats. Theyre students at some of the worlds top universities, Warren said. Most of them have already been vetted and granted the right to come to America.

The executive order Trump signed late Friday puts a temporary moratorium on travel from seven countries while encouraging an effort to tighten the countrys screening of potential terrorists. But confusion has reigned since the weekend, with contradictory messages from the administration about how people with valid green cards would be handled. And even after the travel ban was halted by a one-week stay in the courts on Saturday, some people are still being blocked from returning to the United States, news organizations have reported.

In speaking of Rahmati in the Senate, Warren said that she was denied travel to the United states a second time on Sunday even after a stay had been imposed by the court.

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An MIT spokesperson confirmed that Rahmati is a student affected by the travel ban. The universitys president had not previously mentioned her name but had told alumni and members of the school community in a Monday message that he was working to help two undergraduates who were barred from the United States because of the order.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif also noted that the university is broadly international, with more than 40 percent of the colleges faculty, 40 percent of graduate students, and 10 percent of undergraduates coming from outside the United States.

The Executive Order on Friday appeared to me a stunning violation of our deepest American values, the values of a nation of immigrants: fairness, equality, openness, generosity, courage, Reif wrote. The Statue of Liberty is the Mother of Exiles; how can we slam the door on desperate refugees? Religious liberty is a founding American value; how can our government discriminate against people of any religion?

He also encouraged people to work constructively to remedy the situation and to acknowledge that there are people of goodwill who see the measures in the Executive Order as a reasonable path to make the country safer, though he added, I am convinced that the Executive Order will make us less safe.

Link:
MIT engineering student from Iran barred entry into US - The Boston Globe