What’s next in the US pressure campaign against Iran? ‘Watch,’ says Trump

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IRAN SPINNING, TRUMP THREATENING: On the 40th anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iran, President Hassan Rouhani declared Tehran was taking another step away from the 2015 nuclear agreement, while the U.S. announced new sanctions aimed at turning the economic screws even tighter on the cash-strapped regime.

In a televised address Rouhani said Iran will begin injecting uranium gas into 1,044 centrifuges at its nuclear facility in Fordo, a first step if Iran eventually wants to produce enriched uranium.

The move came as U.S. officials announced sanctions targeting the inner circle of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as well as Iran’s armed forces general staff, the most senior military body in Iran.

“Iran’s so-called democracy is a sham,” said a senior administration official on a conference call with reporters yesterday. “The power lies in the hands of the supreme leader, Khamenei and his shadow network of corrupt appointees who are forcibly suppressing all opposition inside the country and maintaining their grip on power.”

SANCTIONS ARE BITING: The officials said that because of the financial pressure the U.S. is exerting, Iran is low on funds to back “malign activities” in the region. “The mullahs can no longer offer the economic benefits that originally bought them influence,” one official asserted. “Instead, they now expect funds to flow the other way, making Tehran’s interference much less attractive and reigniting nationalistic patriotic desires for sovereignty.”

But so far Iran’s dire economic straits has not forced it back to the negotiating table over its nuclear program. On Sunday, Khamenei ruled out talks with the U.S., which is the only country to pull out of the agreement with six world powers.

“Those who see negotiations with the US as the solution to every problem are certainly mistaken,” Khamenei said in a speech. “Nothing will come out of talking to the US, because they certainly and definitely won’t make any concessions.”

Asked yesterday where the showdown with Iran is headed, President Trump had a one word answer: “Watch.”

$20 MILLION REWARD: The U.S. accuses Iran of secretly holding former FBI Special Agent Robert Levinson in captivity since 2007, and announced a $20 million reward for “credible information leading to the safe location, recovery and return.”

“Bob Levinson has been away from his family and loved ones for nearly 13 years, and we are determined to reunite them,” said one official. Levinson was last seen alive and photographs received by his family in April 2011.

“Iran has unjustly detained and tortured U.S. citizens as part of its ruthless efforts to exert political pressure on the United States,” the official said.

NORTH KOREA BRISTLES AT TERRORIST DESIGNATION: Meanwhile on the other side of the world, talks with North Korea over its nuclear program remain stalled, as Pyongyang keeps issuing warnings in the form of weapons tests and pronouncements of disapproval.

The latest blast comes from the North’s Foreign Ministry, which objects to the State Department’s terrorism blacklist report released last week, which again designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism during the calender year 2018.

“This proves once again that the U.S. preoccupied with inveterate repugnancy toward the DPRK is invariably seeking its hostile policy towards the latter,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quoted as saying by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

The spokesperson noted the designation comes “at a sensitive time” when “dialogue is at a stalemate, and called it “an insult to and perfidy against the DPRK,”

“The channel of the dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S. is more and more narrowing due to such attitude and stand of the U.S.”

A FRESH START? Despite the lack of progress with either Iran or North Korea, President Trump voiced optimism yesterday that when the New START treaty with the Russians expires next February, the U.S. will be able to strike a new, better nuclear arms reduction agreement with both Russia and China.

“We are looking at arms control right now. We’re dealing with China. We’re dealing with Russia. I think they would both like to do it, especially as we’re talking about nuclear weapons,” Trump told reporters “But we are looking at a major arms control kind of an agreement right now with Russia, China, and maybe somebody else.”

China has given no indication it is prepared to enter into three-way talks, or to in any way limit its nuclear arsenal which is considerably smaller than those of the U.S. and Russia. The 2011 New START agreement limits both sides to 1,550 warheads on 700 missiles and 800 launchers and bombers.

In comparison, China is believed to have between 290 and 300 nuclear weapons, according to the Arms Control Association.

Good Tuesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Susan Katz Keating (@SKatzKeating). Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.

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HAPPENING TODAY: Defense Secretary Mark Esper speaks this afternoon at the National Security Commission’s conference on Artificial Intelligence. The event also features Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and former Defense Undersecretary for Policy Michele Flournoy, among others. See the calendar below for times. Esper’s remarks will be streamed live at 3 p.m. on Defense.gov.

MIND THE GAP: The independent Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance is out with a detailed and highly critical analysis of the failure of U.S. technology to keep up with the threat posed by low-flying cruise missiles and drones, as evidenced by Iran’s attack on Saudi oil facilities last September.

“Iran demonstrated an effective use of a raid strategy with multiple, over 20, fixed-wing Shahed series drones and Quds-1 cruise missiles flying as low as 100 feet above the ground to precisely pinpoint the same spot on multiple Saudi Arabian oil refineries in their destruction, overwhelming the defense designs and capabilities of the missile defense systems currently deployed in the Middle East,” says the MDAA analysis.

The U.S. response — to deploy more three more Patriot missile batteries, along with a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and four Sentinel radars — is wholly inadequate to the threat, writes MDAA’s Riki Ellison.

“These missile defense systems were not intended to defend against targets over the horizon flying low to the earth in 360 degrees towards the defending area, as the curvature of the Earth’s surface limits a land-based radar’s coverage where the radars lose roughly 5% of coverage from the surface for every 10 miles out.” Ellison writes.

Part of the solution, he argues, is developing persistent overhead sensors for fixed sites that can provide both better and over the horizon detection and tracking to warn and target low flying, fixed wing drones and cruise missiles.

The Patriot is manufactured by the American contractor, Raytheon.

BAGHDADI’S SISTER CAPTURED: Turkey says it has captured the elder sister of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an area of northwestern Syria now controlled by Turkish forces.

A senior Turkish official called the arrest of Rasmiya Awad, 65, an intelligence “gold mine,” according to the AP. The sister was reportedly with her husband, daughter-in-law and five children The adults are being interrogated, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

ISIS REGROUPING: As U.S. commanders have repeatedly warned ISIS is attempting to reestablish its lost caliphate, a new report from NBC news suggests many ISIS fighters are repositioning from Syria and finding safe haven in a remote, ungoverned space in Iraq.

“We’re seeing ISIS fighters move from Syria across hundreds of miles of desert,” Marine Corps Brig. Gen. William Seely, commander of Task Force-Iraq, tells NBC. “The fight against ISIS is continuous.”

NBC’s Courtney Kube, reporting from Makhmour, Iraq, says ISIS has moved into a valley in a remote mountainous region in Northern Iraq, controlled by the Kurdish peshmerga on one side and the Iraqi army on the other.

“But along the dividing line between the two, there are areas — some as wide as five miles — where neither side patrols, giving the militants space to move,” she writes.

“I think it’s the place where they have the designs to re-establish the physical caliphate and if they could, I think they would do it here. Syria in my mind is more of a support zone for them,” said Maj. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, deputy commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve.

GD’S MULTIBILLION DOLLAR AWARD: General Dynamics Electric Boat has reached an agreement with the Navy to reduce the next batch of Virginia-class attack submarines from 11 to 9, in a deal that is expected to be worth $20 billion, according to a back-of-the-envelope estimate by Bloomberg.

The Navy was forced by a $1 billion funding shortfall to eliminate two submarines from the buy, Bloomberg reported.

“We have reached a multiyear” agreement “and are working to announce a contract” by Dec. 31, Navy spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez said in a statement. It “will achieve significant savings, will include important lethality enhancements,” and “provide critical stability to the industrial base. Further information will be available upon contract award,” he said.

The Rundown

Washington Examiner: Trump sanctions Iranian supreme leader’s son on 40th anniversary of hostage crisis

Washington Post: In S. Korea, Military Cost Dispute And Trump’s Moves In Syria Fuel Doubts Over U.S. Commitment

New York Times: Iraqis Rise Against a Reviled Occupier: Iran

Wall Street Journal: Battle for Syrian Town Pits Turkey Against Assad Regime

AP: China Pushing Code Of Conduct For South China Sea

Military Times: Concerns Rise Over Possibility Chinese Could Use Tiktok To Collect Troops’ Data

C4ISRNET: 5 Concerns The U.S. Must Tackle To Compete In AI

San Diego Union-Tribune: Report: Trump May Intervene In War Crimes Cases, Restore SEAL Gallagher’s Rank To Chief

Washington Examiner: Veterans call for Delta Force dog Conan to get Purple Heart

Financial Times: U.S. Navy Secretary Warns Of ‘Fragile’ Supply Chain

Popular Mechanics: Drone-Launching Submarines—Not Aircraft Carriers—Could Win the Next Battle of Midway

Bloomberg: General Dynamics Gets a Multibillion-Dollar Navy Sub Deal

USNI News: Block V Virginia-Class Deal Meets Muted Response in Congress

Flight Global.com: U.S. Navy Picks Raytheon And BAE For F/A-18 Towed Decoy Competition

Defense One: Protecting U.S. Bases Increasingly Requires Hardening Civilian Infrastructure

Washington Post: Boeing declares spacecraft abort system test a success, despite the failure of one parachute

Bloomberg Government: ‘What’s Your Warrior?’: Army Looks Past Combat to Sign Up Teens

New York Times: Rudy Boesch, SEAL and ‘Survivor’ Star, Is Dead at 91

Calendar

TUESDAY | NOVEMBER 5

8:30 a.m. 415 New Jersey Ave. N.W. — National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence conference on “Strength Through Innovation: The Future of A.I. and U.S. National Security.” Speakers include: Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., (8:30 a.m.); Steven Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, ( 9:20 a.m.); — Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (12:50 p.m.); Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (2:50 p.m.); Defense Secretary Mark Esper; and former Assistant Defense Secretary for Acquisition Katharina McFarland (3 p.m.); Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa (3:30 p.m.); Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson; Avril Haines, former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and former Defense Undersecretary for Policy Michele Flournoy (3:45 p.m.) https://www.nscai.gov/conference

12 p.m. 2044 Rayburn — National Iranian American Council briefing on “Is Iran Unfathomable to Team Trump?” with Dina Esfandiary, fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center; Tara Sepehri Far, researcher at Human Rights Watch; Akbar Shahid Ahmed, foreign affairs reporter at Huffington Post; and Sina Toossi, senior research analyst at NIAC https://www.niacouncil.org/events

12:30 p.m. 37th and O Sts. N.W. — Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies discussion on “After the U.S. Withdrawal: What’s Next for Russia and Turkey in Syria?” with Hassan Hassan, director of the Center for Global Policy’s Nonstate Actors Program; Ilhan Tanir, executive editor of Ahval News; Angela Stent, director of Eurasian, Russian and East European studies at Georgetown University; Marwa Daoudy, assistant professor at Georgetown University; and Mark Katz, professor of government and politics at George Mason University https://ceres.georgetown.edu/event

1 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. N.W. — Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion on “Building a Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula,” with Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea Mark Lippert, Korea chair at CSIS, among others. https://www.csis.org/events

2:30 p.m. 1957 E St. N.W. — George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies lecture on Ernest Belthell, the first foreign journalist to be based in Korea, and the role of propaganda and disinformation in setting the political agenda and the manipulation of media, with John Burton, Washington columnist at Korea Times; and Yonho Kim, associate research professor of practice and associate director of GWU Institute for Korean Studies http://elliott.gwu.edu

WEDNESDAY | NOVEMBER 6

7:30 a.m. 300 First St. S.E. — Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein speaks at Air Force Association Breakfast Series. https://www.afa.org/events/calendar

8:30 a.m. 1301 K St. N.W. — Washington Post Live a discussion on “Veterans in America,” with Veterans’ Affairs ranking member Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.; Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.; Kayla Williams, director of the Center for a New American Security’s Military, Veterans, and Society Program; Medal of Honor recipient David Bellavia; and Elliot Ackerman, author of “Green on Blue” Livestream at https://www.washingtonpost.com/post-live

8:45 a.m. 2399 Richmond Hwy — International Quality and Productivity Center Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance and Command and Control Battle Management Conference, with Kenneth Bray, acting associate deputy Air Force chief of staff for ISR; Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson; and British Army Brig. Gen. Ben Kite, capability, strategy and development head at the British Army Information Directorate https://www.defenceiq.com/events-isrusa

10:30 a.m. 1025 Connecticut Ave. N.W. — SETA Foundation discussion on “The Future of U.S. Policy on Syria,” with Mona Yacoubian, senior adviser for Syria, the Middle East and North Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace; Luke Coffey, director of the Heritage Foundation Center for Foreign Policy; Kilic Kanat, research director at the SETA Foundation at Washington, D.C.; and Kadir Ustun, executive director of the SETA Foundation. https://setadc.org/events

10:30 a.m. 37th and O Sts. N.W. — Atlantic Council discussion “30 Years Later: Lessons from the Fall of the Berlin Wall,” with former Secretary of State James Baker; and former White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event

12:30 p.m. 2799 Richmond Hwy — Naval Submarine League symposium “Accelerating in a New Direction,” with Adm. Frank Caldwell, director of Naval Reactors; and Navy Program Executive Officer for Submarines Rear Adm. David Goggins. https://www.navalsubleague.org/events

THURSDAY | NOVEMBER 7

7:55 a.m. 2799 Richmond Hwy. — Naval Submarine League symposium “Accelerating in a New Direction,” with Pacific Fleet Submarine Force Commander Rear Adm. Blake Converse speaking at 10:45 a.m.; and Assistant Navy Secretary for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts at 12 p.m. https://www.navalsubleague.org/events

8 a.m. 2201 G St. N.W. — Defense Writers Group breakfast with Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, undersecretary of energy for nuclear security and NNSA administrator. https://nationalsecuritymedia.gwu.edu

8 a.m. 950 New York Ave. N.W. — Defense One Outlook 2020 live summit with R. Clarke Cooper, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs; Amb. James Jeffrey, special representative for syria engagement; Richard Fontaine, deputy director-general for the International Institute for Strategic Studies; Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Sen. Chris Van Hollen D-Md.; Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer The Washington Post; Elise Jordan, columnist, TIME; Patricia Kim, senior policy analyst, China, U.S. Institute of Peace. https://www.defenseone.com/feature/outlook-2020

8 a.m. 789 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. — American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research discussion on “Blurring the Line: Politics and the Military in a Post-9/11 America,” with Nora Bensahel, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Rebecca Burgess, AEI; Giselle Donnelly, AEI; Jim Golby, U.S. Army; Seth Lynn, Veterans Campaign; Jeremy Teigen, Ramapo College; Heidi Urben, U.S. Army. Livestream at: http://www.american.com/watch/aei-livestream

8:30 a.m. 902 Hart — The American Conservative foreign policy conference “Regime Change: How to Replace the Beltway Blob with the Foreign Policy Americans Want,” with Andrew Bacevich, TAC writer-at-large; Emma Ashford, defense and foreign policy research fellow at the Cato Institute; retired Col. Doug Macgregor, author, Margin of Victory: Five Battles that Changed the Face of Modern War; Mark Perry, author, The Pentagon’s Wars: The Military’s Undeclared Wars Against America’s Presidents, and many others. Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/regime-change

8:30 a.m. 1001 16th St. N.W. — American Bar Association “Annual Review of the Field of National Security Law,” with Dana Boente, general counsel at the FBI, and Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers. https://www.americanbar.org/events

FRIDAY | NOVEMBER 8

12:15 p.m. 1777 F St, N.W. — Council on Foreign Relations discussion “Stabilizing Venezuela: What Now?” with former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield; former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Dennis Duddy, director of the Duke University Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Francisco Rodriguez, director of the Oil for Venezuela Foundation; Cynthia Arnson, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin American Program; and Stephen Donehoo, managing partner at McLarty Associates. http://www.cfr.org

12:30 p.m. 14th and F St. N.W. — National Press Club newsmaker luncheon address with Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie. https://www.press.org/events

TUESDAY | NOVEMBER 12

8 a.m. 2201 G Street N.W. — Defense Writers Group breakfast with Will Roper, assistant secretary of the air force for acquisition, technology and logistics. https://nationalsecuritymedia.gwu.edu

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Today’s anniversary is a stark reminder that we are dealing with today the same regime that sprung up 40 years ago, the same regime that remains committed to violence and hostage taking that our diplomats encountered so long ago

A senior administration official, briefing reporters on the 40th anniversary of the 444-day hostage crisis that began with the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran April 4, 1979.

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