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A police officer stands outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 2017 in Washington. Eric Thayer / Getty Images

Although foreign countries are generally immune from U.S. lawsuits, the law makes exceptions for acts of terrorism. A federal judge eventually awarded the Americans $71.5 million. But because Iran has few assets frozen in the US the usual source for satisfying such court judgments lawyers for the Americans had to come up with other assets to seize.

The Supreme Court case involved thousands of small clay tablets from Persepolis, the ancient capital of Persia, on long-term loan by Iran to the

In 2016, a federal appeals court ruled that the antiquities could not be used to help satisfy the court judgment, because Iran was not using them for commercial purposes.

The federal government has generally sided with Iran during the years of litigation. "Although the United States sympathizes with petitioners and other victims of terrorism, the seizure of a foreign sovereign's property via attachment or execution can affect the United States' foreign relations," said Jeffrey Wall, the Trump administration's acting solicitor general.

Originally posted here:
Supreme Court Takes Up Dispute Over Iran Antiquities in Terror Case - NBCNews.com

SUT represents the aspirations of a generation of Iranian policy makers who, in the wake of the 1979 revolution, were determined to put their country on the science and technology map.

"I don't want to exaggerate the situation," says Professor Jawad Salehi, tongue far from cheek, but "MIT is the Sharif of the U.S."

Be that as it may, Iran's educational leaders must also brace themselves for the fact that Sharif is a conduit out of the country.

"The computer engineering department in this university -- they call that the airport," says 19-year-old civil engineering student Kiarash. "Our main reason for joining this university is for going abroad."

"Going back really to (the) early stages of the revolution, but it continues, the government has really invested in education, partly to address inequality," says Arang Keshavarzian, associate professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU.

That investment took on new importance after the bloody Iran-Iraq war launched by Saddam Hussein, says Salehi.

The war "showed the core of our system -- that knowledge and technology is very fundamental for our survivability in the future."

The lesson, says Salehi, was broad. MIT "helped to advance the American society," he says. "Iranian society at the time was in need of engineers, more than anything else."

"Our society would have to advance itself based on knowledge, on science, and know-how."

The resemblance between Sharif and major Western universities doesn't extend much beyond the groups of students chatting beneath the trees outside -- the buildings are heavy on breeze block and concrete. There are no starchitect-built theaters here, but faculty members and students speak of the place with pride.

"If you gave us the MIT budget," says Salehi, " and you gave us the facilities and laboratories, but here in the Sharif campus, I am sure that -- I mean, I don't want to exaggerate this -- but I am sure that we would be at par with some of the best of the world."

SUT staff would not allow CNN to chat to students on campus, but we spoke to several on the streets nearby; they are identified here only by their first names, as some of their comments could be considered controversial.

The university is "the best in the country," says 25-year-old electrical engineering student Mehdi.

But he says Western sanctions -- some now lifted in the wake of the 2015 nuclear deal -- have limited students' access to scientific papers, equipment, and the ability to "reach the technology. It's heavily affected us."

Walking to campus with four friends, Kiarash says that the "university atmosphere is way better" than most other Iranian institutions.

Kiarash's generation lives in a different world to that of their parents; through the internet, Western culture reaches Iran like never before.

Though many social media websites, such as Facebook and Reddit, are officially blocked, simple workarounds mean they are easily accessible. Encrypted messaging apps like Telegram have taken off, and allow of a form of communication completely out of the government's sight; even Iran's presidential campaigns have embraced Telegram.

Students like Kiarash and his friend Pegah, 20, recognize their privilege, but expect more.

"It's known to be the best university of Iran, but we don't have much facilities," says Pegah.

"We have something," Kiarash chimes in. "A device for mixing some kinds of concrete. It's (from) the former king of Iran's era."

And there are bigger, more fundamental issues.

"I wear whatever I like," says Kiarash. "But, for example, my friend here, she has to wear hijab."

Their clothing would fit it in at any Western university -- jeans and T-shirts. But Pegah, who is female, must adhere to Iran's rules mandating conservative clothing for women.

Several times, Pegah says, she's been reprimanded for her clothing. "For example, they say your jeans are too tight. But it's not tight!"

"The MIT of Iran?" laughs Satya, a 20-year-old in her senior year studying physics. "It is the best university in Tehran, I guess. It's hard. But I am doing it."

The strictures placed on students are not just a matter of personal annoyances, says Iranian economy and education specialist Nader Habibi, of Brandeis University in the U.S. "The government imposes an Islamic lifestyle," he says, but for many urban families, "their vision of a good lifestyle is more liberal."

One way around this, Habibi says, would be to "create small areas where (a) more diverse lifestyle is tolerated" -- think Dubai, an outpost of liberal excesses in a fundamentally very conservative country, the United Arab Emirates. That model has been successful in attracting foreign investment, and convincing multinationals to set up shop.

In Iran, there is a constant tug-of-war between politicians like President Hassan Rouhani -- reform-minded, at least by Iranian standards -- and the conservative, revolutionist clergy, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the helm.

It's evident everywhere in Tehran, where you're as likely to pass a woman covered head to toe in a flowing black chador, as a woman made up to the nines, with coiffed hair, designer clothes, and a scarf half-way back on her head, barely conforming to rules requiring female head coverings.

The Iranian government, says Habibi, has thus far resisted implementing any Dubai-style system in Iran.

As far as Kiarash is concerned, that inflexibility is driving away Iran's brightest students. "They only wait (for) their main civil rights," he says. "And when they don't give them, they have to go."

Ramtin Keramati is one of those who left the country. On the phone from California, the SUT graduate recalls the first time he saw Stanford University's campus. "I was like, 'Oh my God, this is gorgeous! This is amazing!'"

Keramati says the transition was difficult, but he had company -- in the form of roughly 8,700 Iranian students studying in the US, according to a 2014 study by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. They're among as many as 50,000 Iranians studying around the world.

Stanford even has a Persian Students Association, which Keramati says picked him up from the airport and helped him get acclimatized to life on a US campus.

"It's really hard," he says. "I didn't know what to expect ... everything was a surprise."

There is a rich history of Iranians seeking greener pastures -- at least temporarily -- abroad.

President Rouhani studied in Scotland. His foreign minister, Javad Zarif, studied in California. SUT's Salehi got his bachelor's degree at the University of California at Irvine and his PhD at the University of Southern California before working at Bell Labs in New Jersey, which he calls "one of the best periods of my life." Firuzabad, the president of SUT, got his master's degree and PhD in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The "brain drain is significant," says Brandeis' Habibi; he says Iran's government has tried to stem it, using economic incentives.

Anyone who receives a government scholarship to study abroad can have that loan written off if they return to Iran to work for a certain number of years, but "that's only a small fraction of Iran's brain drain," Habibi says.

Much more significant are the students or professionals who move abroad for better opportunities. Once someone has completed their mandatory military service, Habibi says, the government can do nothing to stop them from leaving.

The brain drain is a "very sensitive question," Salehi acknowledges. Everyone has the right to emigrate, he says, "but we can influence their choice."

"It is the duty of the government, or the society, to give so many opportunities in our country that a young person who was thinking of leaving would have a bit of a doubt," he says.

The government often reaches out "to educated professional Iranians in ... Western countries, to encourage them to come back," Habibi says; he estimates that the Rouhani government, aided by the lifting of some sanctions, has convinced 100 to 200 Iranians a year to return to work in their homeland.

And the desire to leave is by no means universal.

Aerospace engineering student Mohammed, 21, says his faculty members have "good connections with the industry to get a job later," adding: "I just want to stay here."

But a very unscientific survey found that the call of foreign countries resonates with plenty of Sharif's students. That's certainly the case with physics student Satya.

As far as she's concerned, "every one" of the university's students goes abroad.

"That's the goal when we come here," she says. "This is why Sharif is important, and very famous, because we can apply and we can go and never come back, maybe."

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Brain drain to the West: Inside 'Iran's MIT' - CNN.com - CNN International

European companies should not rush to pour money into Irans industries.

By Ryszard Czarnecki for The Diplomat

June 27, 2017

Immediately following the reelection of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani last month, the countrys Oil Ministry began boasting about its expectations that new investment deals with European nations would be signed before Rouhani took the oath for his second term later this summer.

There doesnt appear to be much concrete information to back up these claims, and the Islamic Republic of Iran has a demonstrated track record of exaggerating its own prospects, both in terms of economic outcomes and military development. Yet, the latest rhetoric reflects political and diplomatic realities, including the likelihood of some Western policymakers and businessmen taking Rouhanis reelection as a cue to expand their relations with the Iranian regime. This is something that the whole world should be alarmed about.

When the Iran nuclear agreement, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was implemented in January 2016, it was not a good time to invest in Iranian institutions or to attempt the normalization of relations with the Islamic Republic. Now that Rouhani has been reelected following his repetition of the same reformist promises that were broken over the past four years, it is still not a good time for investment or normalization. As a matter of fact, there simply is no good time for those moves. The only circumstances under which Western entities should reenter Iran is after the theocratic regime has given way to a democratic system of governance thataffords liberty to its people.

The U.S. Senate this month approved a sanctions package that would extend terrorism-related restrictions to the entirety of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps a measure that should have been implemented virtually as soon as the hardline paramilitary came into being.

But on the other hand, for all of President Donald Trumps tough talk on the Iranian regime, he has stopped short of blocking newfound deals like the multi-billion dollar Boeing aircraft sale. In fact, his administration has extended the waivers under the JCPOA, even while emphasizing the fact that Iran remains the worlds foremost state sponsor of terrorism and calling for the international community to isolate Tehran and deny it the means of terror financing.

It is arguably understandable that Trump doesnt want to assume the political risks of unilaterally undermining the JCPOA. But this does not absolve Europe from responsibility if any of its governments or businesses decide to hand money to Iran in the nave hope that it will not make its way into the hands of terrorist groups or into the accounts of institutions that are responsible for regional destabilization and the violent repression of the Iranian people.

It will take serious effort for the world to counterbalance the misplaced sentiments of those who see Rouhani as a realistic prospect for moderation within Irans clerical regime.

Of course, this moderation did not manifest during his first term in office, when he oversaw the worst period of executions in 25 years, as well as several illicit ballistic missile tests and a more than two-fold increase in close encounters between IRGC attack boats and Western vessels transiting the Persian Gulf, let alone the IRGCs murderous interventions in Iraq and Syria. In the wake of all this and much more, the vast majority of the Iranian people do not take Rouhanis renewed promises of reform seriously. As such, neither should European governments or would-be investors.

But not everyone in the West is suitably aware of Iranians disillusionment, much less their overwhelming readiness to support international efforts that would isolate and economically cripple the regimes hardline institutions to make way for the democratic transformation of the country. This situation is something that the world community as a whole must understand before individual stakeholders make any decisions that could indirectly finance Iran-backed terrorism.

One way of making this situation known is to focus the attention of policymakers and business leaders onto the Iran Freedom rally that will be taking place outside of Paris on July 1. The annual event, organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), attracts tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates and is viewed by millions of Iranians using illegal satellite dishes inside their home country. I have participated in this event many times. It is well attended by European and American political dignitaries and foreign policy scholars.

Virtually every Iranian who participates in the NCRI rally has lost family or close friends to the Iranian regime, generally under circumstances of willful ignorance on the part of Western authorities. Yet they do not resent todays Western leaders for those losses; rather, they see Western vigilance as a tool that could go a long way toward sparing a new generation of Iranians from suffering the same pain.

Ryszard Czarnecki is vice president of the European Parliament and a former European minister of Poland.

See more here:
There Is No Good Time to Invest in Iran - The Diplomat

BERLIN Iran's foreign minister criticized on Tuesday a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to revive part of President Donald Trump's travel ban imposed on citizens from six majority Muslim countries, saying it would boost militants in the Middle East.

The justices narrowed the scope of lower court rulings that had completely blocked key parts of a March 6 executive order that Trump had said was needed to prevent terrorism attacks, allowing his temporary ban to go into effect for people with no strong ties to the United States. [nL1N1JN0M6]

"We always believed that the Muslim ban that President Trump imposed soon after assuming office had no basis in facts and would not help fight terrorism," Iran's Mohammad Javad Zarif told a joint news conference in Berlin with his German counterpart.

Zarif called the U.S. decision the "greatest gift" for militant groups seeking new recruits.

Separately, Zarif tweeted: "A bigoted ban on Muslims will not keep US safer. Instead of policies empowering extremists, US should join the real fight against them."

Zarif said the travel ban punished people who had never been convicted of a terrorist act, while people from other countries involved in past attacks would not be affected.

"For some terrorism and support for terrorism is measured by the amount of arms they buy from the U.S, and not by actually being involved in acts of terrorism," he said, in an apparent reference to recent U.S. approval of $110 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi citizens are not affected by the travel ban.

Zarif did not mention Saudi Arabia by name but the ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom is the arch-foe of Shi'ite Iran in the region.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh in Beirut; Editing by Madeline Chambers and Gareth Jones)

MOSCOW/KIEV/WASHINGTON A major global cyber attack disrupted computers at Russia's biggest oil company, Ukrainian banks and multinational firms with a virus similar to the ransomware that infected more than 300,000 computers last month .

CARACAS A Venezuelan police helicopter strafed the Supreme Court and a government ministry on Tuesday, escalating the OPEC nation's political crisis in what President Nicolas Maduro called an attack by "terrorists" seeking a coup.

Continued here:
Iran's Zarif raps US Supreme Court's partial revival of travel ban - Reuters

DAMASCUS As the drive to push ISIS out of its remaining territories in Syria and Iraq rapidly advances, the U.S. and its allied forces have entrenched themselves in the southeastern Syrian border town of al-Tanaf, cutting off a major highway linking Damascus to Baghdad.

Defeating ISIS is Washingtons only stated military objective inside Syria. So what are those American troops doing there, blocking a vital artery connecting two Arab allied states in their own fight against terrorism?

Our presence in al-Tanaf is temporary, says Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the Combined Joint Task Force of Operation Inherent Resolve (CTFO-OIR), the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS, via phone from Baghdad. Our primary reason there is to train partner forces from that area for potential fights against ISIS elsewhereand to maintain security in that border region.

Dillon adds for emphasis: Our fight is not with the (Syrian) regime.

But since May 18, when U.S. airstrikes targeted Syrian forces and their vehicles approaching al-Tanaf, American forces have shot down two Syrian drones and fired on allied Syrian troops several times, each time citing self-defense. In that same period, however, it doesnt appear that the al-Tanaf-based U.S.-backed militants have even once engaged in combat with ISIS.

Bouthaina Shaaban, political and media advisor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is left bemused by that rhetoric: When asked what theyre doing in the south of Syria, they say theyre there for their national security, but then they object to the movements of the Syrian army inside Syria?

She has a point. Under international law, any foreign troop presence inside a sovereign state is illegal unless specifically invited by the recognized governing authority in this case, Assads government, the only Syrian authority recognized by the UN Security Council. Uninvited armies try to circumvent the law by claiming that Syria is unable or unwilling to fight ISIS and the threat to international security it poses. But unwilling and unable is only a theory, and not law, and since the Russians entered the Syrian military theater to ostensibly fight ISIS with the Syrians, that argument thins considerably.

Colonel Dillon acknowledges the point but argues that the Syrian army only just showed up recently in the area. If they can show that they are capable of fighting and defeating ISIS, then we dont have to be there and that is less work for us and would be welcome.

Its not clear who made the U.S. arbiters of such a ruling. Syrias fight against ISIS has picked up considerably in recent months, since four de-escalation zones were established during May negotiations in Astana among Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Reconciliation agreements among government forces and some militant groups in those zones and the transfer of other militants to the northern governorate of Idlib has meant that Syrian allied forces have been able to move their attention away from strategic areas in the west and concentrate on the ISIS fight in the east of the country.

An April 2017 report by IHS Markit, the leading UK security and defense information provider, asserts that the Islamic State fought Syrian government forces more than any other opponent over the past 12 months. Between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017, says the organization, 43 percent of all Islamic State fighting in Syria was directed against President Assads forces, 17 against the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the remaining 40 percent involved fighting rival Sunni opposition groups in particular, those who formed part of the Turkey-backed Euphrates Shield coalition.

In other words, during the period when IS territorial losses were most significant, Syrian forces fought ISIS more than twice as often as U.S.-backed ones.

An American Wedge Between Syria and Iraq

So whats with the continued U.S. presence in al-Tanaf, an area where there is no ISIS presence and where the Syrian army and its allies have been making huge progress against their militant Islamist opponents?

The above map commissioned by the author.

If you look at the map commissioned by the author above, there are approximately three main highway crossings from major Syrian centers into Iraq. The northern-most border highway is currently under the control of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces who seek to carve out an independent statelet called Western Kurdistan.

The Homs-to-Baghdad highway in the middle of the map cuts through ISIS-besieged Deir ez-Zor, where up to 120,000 civilians have been protected by some 10,000 Syrian troops since ISIS stormed its environs in 2014. While that border point to Iraq is currently blocked by the terror group, Syrian forces are advancing rapidly from the west, north, and south to wrest the region back from ISIS control.

The Damascus-to-Baghdad highway in the south of the country, which allied Syrian forces have largely recaptured from militants, could have easily been the first unobstructed route between Syria and Iraq. Until, of course, U.S.-led forces entrenched themselves in al-Tanaf and blocked that path.

The Syrians cleared most of the highway this year, but have been inhibited from reaching the border by a unilaterally-declared deconfliction zone established by U.S.-led coalition forces.

It was agreed upon with the Russians that this was a deconfliction zone, says CJTF spokesman Dillon.

Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov begs to differ: I dont know anything about such zones. This must be some territory, which the coalition unilaterally declared and where it probably believes to have a sole right to take action. We cannot recognize such zones.

Since regime-change plans fell flat in Syria, Beltway hawks have been advocating for the partitioning of Syria into at least three zones of influence a buffer zone for Israel and Jordan in the south, a pro-U.S. Kurdish entity along the north and north-east, and control over the Syrian-Iraqi border.

But clashes with Syrian forces along the road to al-Tanaf have now created an unintended consequence for the U.S.s border plans. Syrian allied troops circumvented the al-Tanaf problem a few weeks ago by establishing border contact with Iraqi forces further north, thereby blocking off access for U.S. allies in the south. And Iraqi security forces have now reached al-Waleed border crossing, on Iraqs side of the border from al-Tanaf, which means U.S.-led forces are now pinned between Iraqis and Syrians on the Damascus-Baghdad road.

When Syrians and Iraqis bypassed the al-Tanaf area and headed northward to establish border contact, another important set of facts was created on the ground. U.S. coalition forces are now cut off at least from the south of Syria from fighting ISIS in the northeast. This is a real setback for Washingtons plans to block direct Syrian-Iraqi border flows and score its own dazzling victory against ISIS. As Syrian forces head toward Deir ez-Zor, U.S.-backed forces participation in the battle to liberate that strategic area will now be limited to the Kurd-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the north, while Syrian forces have established safe passage from the north, south, west and potentially from the east, with the aid of allied Iraqi forces.

Why Washington Wants That Border

Re-establishing Syrian control over the highway running from Deir ez-Zor to Albu Kamal and al-Qaim is also a priority for Syrias allies in Iran. Dr. Masoud Asadollahi, a Damascus-based expert in Middle East affairs explains: The road through Albu Kamal is Irans favored option it is a shorter path to Baghdad, safer, and runs through green, habitable areas. The M1 highway (Damascus-Baghdad) is more dangerous for Iran because it runs through Iraqs Anbar province and areas that are mostly desert.

If the U.S. objective in al-Tanaf was to block the southern highway between Syria and Iraq, thereby cutting off Irans land access to the borders of Palestine, they have been badly outmaneuvered. Syrian, Iraqi, and allied troops have now essentially trapped the U.S.-led forces in a fairly useless triangle down south, and created a new triangle (between Palmyra, Deir ez-Zor, and Albu Kamal) for their final battle against ISIS.

The Americans always plan for one outcome and then get another one that is unintended, observes Irans new envoy to Syria, Ambassador Javad Turk Abadi.

He and others in Damascus remain optimistic that the border routes long been denied to regional states will re-open in short order.

Through the era of the Silk Road, the pathway between Syria, Iran, and Iraq was always active until colonialism came to the region, explains Turk Abadi.

In the same way that Western great powers have always sought to keep Russia and China apart, in the Middle East, that same divide-and-rule doctrine has been applied for decades to maintaining a wedge between Syria and Iraq.

In the history of the last half century, it was always prevented for Syria and Iraq to get close, to coordinate. When (former Syrian president) Hafez al-Assad and (former Iraqi president) Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr almost reached a comprehensive agreement, Saddam Hussein made a coup detat and hung all the officers who wanted rapprochement with Syria,msays Shaaban, who has just published a book on Hafez Assads dealings with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Saddam then launched an eight-year war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the latter lost road access through Iraq for more than two decades. In early 2003, U.S. troops invaded Iraq, deposed Saddam, and occupied the country for the next nine years. During that era, Iranian airplanes were often ordered down for inspections, instigated by U.S. occupation forces interested in thwarting Irans transfer of weapons and supplies to the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah and other allies.

By the time U.S. troops exited Iraq in late 2011, the Syrian conflict was already under way, fully armed, financed, and supported by several NATO states and their Persian Gulf allies.

When those borders are re-opened, says Asadollahi, this will be the first time Iran will have a land route to Syria and Palestine though others point out that the Iranians have always found ways to transport goods undetected.

Our army is now almost at the border and Iraqis are at their border and we are not going to stop, insists Shaaban.

Syrian and Iraqi forces have not yet checkmated American forces operating in their military theaters. There is still talk of an escalation that may pit the United States against Syrias powerful Russian ally, a dangerous development that could precipitate a regional or global war.

But in Baghdad, the U.S.-led coalition spokesman Colonel Dillon struck a slightly more nuanced tone from the more belligerent threats sounded in Washington:

Were not in Syria to grab land. If the Syrian regime can show they can defeat ISIS, then were fine with that. The Waleed border crossing is a good sign that shows these capabilities. We are open to secure borders both on the Syrian and Iraqi side. Were not there with the intent to block anything, were there to defeat ISIS and train forces for that.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Mideast geopolitics, based in Beirut.

Read more:
Dispatch From the Middle East: US Buildup All About Iran - The American Conservative