DUBAI, June 16 (Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader urged voters on Wednesday to turn out in large numbers for the June 18 presidential election, saying such a show of strength would reduce foreign pressure on the Islamic Republic.

Two hardliners and one moderate quit the field of seven officially permitted candidates on Wednesday, leaving what is shaping into a straightforward contest between the hardline head of the judiciary and a moderate former head of the central bank.

Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, 60, an ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is widely tipped as the favourite to succeed Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist stepping down after two terms.

"In less than 48 hours, a crucial event will take place in the country... By your presence and vote, you actually determine the fate of the country, in all major issues," Khamenei said in a televised speech.

Supporters of presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi hold posters of him during an election rally in Tehran, Iran June 16, 2021. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Under Iran's ruling system, the supreme leader has the final say over state affairs, while the elected president governs the country day-to-day.

Last month, the hardline Guardian Council disqualified several prominent moderate and conservative candidates, leaving a field dominated by hardliners, with Abdolnasser Hemmati, who stood down as central bank chief to run, as Raisi's main moderate challenger.

Wednesday's announcement that former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and hardline lawmaker Alireza Zakani had dropped out will help consolidate the hardline vote behind Raisi. Moderate Mohsen Mehralizadeh also stood aside in a boost for Hemmati. Two other hardline candidates remain on the ballot, though they could step aside or back Raisi before Friday's vote.

The restricted field may further dim the clerical establishment's hopes of a high turnout amid growing popular frustration over economic hardship and political restrictions.

A banner of presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi ​is seen in Tehran, Iran June 16, 2021. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Some prominent pro-reform politicians in Iran and activists abroad have called for an election boycott, and the hashtag #NoToIslamicRepublic has been widely tweeted by Iranians inside and outside the country in the past weeks.

Official opinion polls suggest turnout could be as low as 41%, significantly lower than in past elections.

The election comes as Iran is negotiating in Vienna with world powers to revive a 2015 deal under which it agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

U.S. President Joe Biden hopes to revive the agreement, which his predecessor Donald Trump abandoned. Although the agreement was a signature achievement of outgoing president Rouhani, the election is not expected to have a major impact on Iran's negotiating position, which is set by Khamenei.

But a strong mandate for Raisi could strengthen Khamenei's hand at home, and affect the search for an eventual successor to the 82-year-old supreme leader, in power for 32 years.

"If the new president is elected by a significant majority of the votes, he will be a powerful president and can carry out great tasks," Khamenei said. "If we have a fall in the election turnout, we will have an increase of pressure from our enemies."

Iran has made 6.5 kg (14 lb) of uranium enriched to up to 60%, the government said on Tuesday, detailing a move that rattled the country's nuclear talks with world powers by taking the fissile material a step towards nuclear weapons grade of 90%.

Government spokesman Ali Rabiei was quoted by state media as saying the country had also produced 108 kg of uranium enriched to 20% purity, indicating quicker output than the rate required by the Iranian law that created the process.

Iran said in April it would begin enriching uranium to 60% purity, a move that would take the uranium much closer to the 90% suitable for a nuclear bomb.

On June 18, the 13th presidential election of Iran will take place. A poll by the TV channel Press TV indicates a landslide victory of the candidate Ibrahim Raisi over the other candidates.

Ibrahim Raisi was born in 1960 in the Nu'an area near the city of Mashhad. Already at a young age he connected with religion, and at the age of 15 he enrolled in a seminary that trains Shiite clerics in the city of Kom. After completing his contract, he began his academic studies at various institutions in Iran, but studied for his doctorate in jurisprudence and the foundations of Shiite Islamic law at the martyrdom of the martyr Muthari in Tehran (some Iranian sources claim that his degree is controversial).

After the revolution he was appointed general prosecutor of Hamadan province, then rose through the ranks and became deputy prosecutor of the city of Tehran. But the action that made headlines for the first time was the killing of dissidents in 1988. Raisi was one of four key people who executed between 4,500 and 30,000 (there is too much misinformation in the execution data) from the Mujahideen Khalq organization. At that time he was very close to Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini, and the latter gave him special powers independent of the Iranian legal system.

After Khomeini's death and Khomeini's rise, he was appointed the chief prosecutor of Tehran for about 5 years. In 1994 he was appointed head of the General Supervision Office. From 2004 he served for a decade as the First Vice President of the Supreme Court of Iran, and in 2014 he was appointed Chief Prosecutor of Iran. In parallel with his special role as Iran's Chief Prosecutor, he began serving as chairman of Astan Quds Razawi (the institution of trust in the Temple of Imam Rida and in charge of the Iranian charitable system).

In the 2017 election he was a candidate on behalf of the Popular Front Party of the Islamic Party (a party belonging to the Conservative current), but lost to incumbent President Hassan Rouhani when Rouhani received about 57.1% of the vote. During the 2017 election campaign, Raisi said "that Iran will establish ties with any country except Israel," which shows his hostile attitude toward the State of Israel.

In 2019 the writer Said Glucker on Al-Jazeera called Raisi as "Khamini's most likely successor" as Iran's future leader. In 2020 journalist Dexter Filkins wrote in the New Yoker "Most of the people I talk to in Iran mention Ibrahim Raisi's candidacy as Khamini's successor ". 

There have been speculations in the past about the possibility that Qassem Suleimani will replace Khamenei after the latter passes away, but with his assassination in January 2020, Raisi's candidacy for the position of supreme leader grew stronger. It is important to clarify that even as Khamenei's own son Mujathaba Khamenei has been seen as a leading candidate for the position, but his religious and political status is still not strong enough so at this time Raisi is the leading candidate to succeed Khamenei.

Ibrahim Raisi will probably be the next president of Iran and maybe one day also the supreme leader of Iran, but it is important to remember that Raisi will not change his extremist attitude towards Israel or the West and therefore Israel and the West must start getting to know the people operating in Iran who directly affect the Middle East in general and us in particular.

Saudi Arabian air defenses intercepted and destroyed an armed drone launched by Yemen's Houthi group towards the southern Saudi city of Khamis Mushait, state television said on Monday.

It cited the Saudi-led military coalition, which has been battling the Houthis for over six years, as saying it was taking operational measures to protect civilians from such assaults.

On Sunday, Saudi state media said a drone rigged with explosives fell on a school in the kingdom's Aseer province but that no injuries were reported.

The Iran-aligned Houthis have frequently launched cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities in the war. 

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Researchers said that the decline in the number of nuclear weapons seen since the early 1990s has slowed, with some indications of an increase.

"It seems that the reduction in nuclear arsenals to which we have become accustomed since the end of the Cold War seems to be waning," said Hans Christensen from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The total number of nuclear weapons among the nine nuclear-armed countries, the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, was 13,080 in early 2021, a slight decrease from 13,400 in the previous year, according to a SIPRI report.

"We see very important nuclear modernization programs all over the world and in all the nuclear states," Christensen added. He also said that nuclear states appear to be raising the "importance they attach to nuclear weapons in their military strategies."

An oil tanker docks in the Mediterranean Sea near the oil port of Europe Asia Pipeline Company (EAPC), as seen from Ashkelon. 

Iran, which regularly supplies the Assad regime with crude oil shipments. This repeatedly raises the question of how Assad pays the price, at a time when his country's treasury is in short supply.

Similarly, Iran supplies the Assad regime with almost regular oil shipments, about 3 million barrels a month. That amount covers, at most, only half the quantity that the Assad regime needs.

Today, three Iranian oil tankers are expected to arrive at the Banias port, carrying about one million and 700,000 barrels of crude oil, according to sites that specialize in tracking maritime traffic.

Although it is known that Iran does not provide anything to Assad for free, the information on the compensation that Iran receives for these oil shipments is contradictory and almost unavailable.

Dr. Muhammad Abdul Majid, a researcher at the Center for Iranian Studies in Ankara, told "Orient Net" that Iran does not receive money for oil, but contracts, investments in energy, flour mills, and phosphates.

He adds that the sanctions imposed on Iran make it difficult to sell oil, so it sells at a price lower than the world market price. Iran prefers to sell it to Assad, even if the price is not in cash but investments.

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On Saturday, unidentified gunmen attacked a joint military post of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and special forces of the Assad regime in the southwestern rural area of Al-Raqqa province in eastern Syria.

A local news network quoted a military source as saying that the attack, which was set into motion over a month ago, was carried with machine-gun fire, and killed two Hezbollah militiamen and four Syrian special forces personnel.

The Syrian media has previously stated that Hezbollah controls the Syrian military airport, and it is only natural that elite combatants, both from the Syrian commando and the Hezbollah forces, maintain extensive perimeter defense around the field.

The network explained that after the attack, Hezbollah members sought joint reinforcements composed of militia fighters and special forces.

It should be noted that this attack, so close to a site of strategic importance to Hezbollah in eastern Syria, indicates that ISIS forces operating in the region are daring, but as of yet no one has agreed to place the responsibility for this attack on ISIS.

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According to Iranian media reports, since the beginning of the year, drought damage has caused about $ 3 billion in damage to the local agricultural industry.

The Iranian Ministry of Agriculture claims that according to data collected from 30 provinces in the country, there has been a 43% decline in agricultural output.

According to meteorological models, this situation is not expected to improve over the next five years and may even become more severe. In Iran, it is reported that the amount of precipitation this year decreased by about 55% compared to last year, and only in 4 provinces was an average amount of precipitation recorded.

Experts in Iran are urging the government to adopt a national plan to tackle the lack of precipitation, but so far this does not seem to be at the top of the leaders' priority. 

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During a meeting, Syrian regime forces asked the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to remove checkpoints they had set up on the al-Bukmal-Dir a-Zour road, but their request was denied.

A Syrian news site reported that the meeting, which took place in the security district in the Iranian-controlled city of Albuqmal, was attended by the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Albuqmal, and an officer with the rank of Brigadier General from the regime forces.

The website added that the senior Syrian officer had asked to remove these checkpoints because Revolutionary Guardsmen violated prior agreements by working against smuggling trucks belonging to Mahar al-Assad, the president's brother, and several smuggling figures that have the support of the regime.

It is worth noting that the Syrian regime and the Iranian militias are engaged in smuggling cannabis throughout the Deir a-Zor district, where the Iranian militias have already brought into the al-Bukhamal area several trucks loaded with narcotics.

Military police patrols arrested the most senior officer in charge of military fuel in Syria, known as the "King of Oil", an officer with the rank of general in the Assad regime.

After being stripped of his rank he was taken to a military court for questioning on various charges, including embezzlement, sabotage, and co-operation with outsiders.

This arrest comes shortly after a fire broke out in an Iranian oil tanker off the Syrian coast, and amid speculation at the time that this was deliberate arson- even before sources claimed the tanker was bombed by unidentified drones.

Several sources in the Syrian media have reported on the arrest of the general and the seizure of his, and his wife's, property. These sources (intentionally or unintentionally) portrayed Assad's regime as anti-corruption.

The Assad regime tries, from time to time, to present itself as an effective force operating in a state with a rule of law, at a time when the militias dominate all aspects of life and ignore Syria's security services.

Official Jordanian media said on Sunday that the Jordanian military court would next week begin the trials of a former royal court chief and a member of the royal family, on charges of inciting opposition to the regime.

The prosecution last week referred to the court the case of Bassem Awadallah, former royal court chief and minister of finance, who played a key role in the campaign to implement economic liberalization, and Sharif Hassan Zaid, a relative of the king.

The two were arrested in early April when the former crown prince, Hamza, was placed under house arrest on charges that he had allied with foreign officials and plotted to undermine the stability of Jordan, a U.S. ally in the Middle East.

However, the proceedings against Prince Hamza were later canceled when he swore allegiance to King Abdullah.

Two prominent politicians familiar with the case told Reuters news agency, after asking not to be identified, that it was revealed during investigations that Awadallah is one of the closest economic advisers to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

They added that Amman refused Riyadh's request to extradite him, without giving further details.

What happened revealed the first serious rift in the Hashemite family that has ruled for years.

If indeed this supply was actually made, then it is a unique deal between two countries that have different alliances and are in different coalitions in the Middle East

The website JANES reports that Turkey recently reported to the UN Convention on Arms Control (UNROCA) that it has supplied three UAVs to Saudi Arabia. The UAV models were not reported in the report, but they were classified in category IV-B, which means armed UAVs.

According to the site, two types of UAVs from this category are manufactured in Turkey: Baykar Bayraktar TB2 and the larger UAV Anka, both of which can carry guided armament produced by the Turkish company Roketsan.

If indeed this supply was actually made, then it is a unique and exceptional deal between two countries that have different alliances and are in different coalitions in the Middle East. While Turkey heads the militant Sunni coalition that also includes Qatar and the Libyan government in Western Libya, Saudi Arabia leads the moderate pro-Western Sunni camp.

This deal may be one of the first signs of the disintegration of this coalition structure (which also includes the Iranian-led Shiite-radical camp), when at the beginning of the year the first rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Qatar was recorded and the boycott imposed on Qatar was lifted.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Three months after Joe Biden entered the White House, his administration is exhibiting symptoms of naiveté, misunderstanding, and disregard for past failures in its foreign policy. These issues are of particular concern to Israel. 

By Prof. Eytan Gilboa

To stop the Iranian race to nuclear weapons, the Obama administration made mistakes in both the negotiation process and the nuclear deal it ultimately reached with Iran in 2015. Barack Obama was overly eager to reach an agreement, and though he repeatedly warned Iran that all options were on the table, it was clear he had no intention of taking military steps. This hardened Iran’s positions and eventually yielded a compromise that worked to the advantage of the Islamic regime.

The same problems have emerged again today. President Biden is going out of his way to appease Iran in an effort to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement, which imposed restrictions on the Iranian regime’s program to develop nuclear weapons.

Biden removed the Houthis (Iran-backed Shiite forces fighting the Saudi-backed Yemeni government) from a list of countries and organizations supporting terrorism. He assumed this move would reduce the violence inside Yemen and against Saudi Arabia so the severe humanitarian crisis caused by the civil war could be addressed. The result was exactly the opposite. Encouraged by Tehran, the Houthis intensified their attacks, especially on Saudi Arabia.

In February, Biden gave the go-ahead for a measured attack on a pro-Iranian militia base on the Syria-Iraq border in retaliation for an attack on a US base in Iraq. He also, however, reduced American forces in the Gulf.

Biden’s spokesmen leaked a claim to the American media that Israel attacked Iranian ships smuggling oil and weapons into Syria. More recently, they leaked information on an alleged Israeli attack on the Saviz, an intelligence ship owned and operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in retaliation for Iranian attacks on two Israeli-owned commercial ships. In doing this, Biden signaled that even if negotiations fail, he will not countenance an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and opposes an Israeli military strike. As it did in 2015, the US administration is tacitly reassuring Iran that it need have no fear of a military attack. Because it has received this reassurance, Tehran will feel free to take tougher positions in the negotiations.

Democrats often tout human rights as a central value in their foreign policy decision-making, but their highly selective application of this principle raises questions. When Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented the 2020 State Department Report on Human Rights, he named countries seriously violating human rights such as Myanmar, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, but omitted Iran. The report also significantly reduced the number of Iranian citizens who were murdered, wounded, and detained by the IRGC during the 2019 mass protests against the regime. A similar phenomenon occurred in 2009, when the Obama administration refrained from condemning the Iranian Islamic regime for brutally suppressing mass protests against the rigging of the presidential elections. The motivation in both cases was to avoid enraging the Islamist regime and undermining the nuclear negotiations.

All these missteps have only toughened Iran’s positions. The regime has agreed not to direct talks but to indirect pre-negotiation talks with the US in Vienna, with the other powers that signed the 2015 deal acting as mediators. This tactic is designed to prevent the US and its European allies from forming a united front. Iran has also begun enriching uranium with state-of-the-art rapid centrifuges, a move that is driving it closer toward the bomb. This is hardly a gesture in the direction of compromise and agreement; it is exactly the opposite.

- For 70 Years, The Arabs have invested in hatred, while Israel invested in becoming better than them
- The future lies with peace
- The real enemies of the gulf countries are Iran and Turkey

Egypt received from the United States approximately $100 billion in aid, in addition to debt relief, and an American waiver of half the debt. Had Egypt managed its affairs responsibly, the present value [of the aid] from the U.S. alone would have reached $200 billion. Egypt could have become a major economic power with these funds, but it suffers from bad management and corruption, and this is not the fault of either Israel or America. As for Jordan, its regime would have collapsed. If not for its strong relations with the West, the Jordanian regime would have fallen. This regime still receives aid to allow its survival. This should also be considered one of the fruits of peace.

"The casualties of the Arab-Arab wars and the civil wars in the Middle East number a hundred times more than the casualties of all the Arab-Israeli wars combined. The so-called Arab-Israeli conflict has become a local, Palestinian conflict.

"You are asking how the UAE benefits from all of this. The UAE has two big enemies right now – Turkey and Iran. Israel can be a powerful ally in the confrontation with Iran.

"For over 70 years, the Arabs have been investing in hatred towards Israel, while Israeli has been successfully investing in becoming superior to the Arabs.

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The Saudi newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, sheds light on the new weapons that countries will soon use in wars: The "water" weapon. This will be the most powerful weapon ever, whithout which humans die without the blood and the horrors of war.

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Iran goes to the polls, and if there are no surprises - the president will be elected Ibrahim Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Khamenei and a leading candidate to succeed him. He will replace Hassan Rouhani.

Raisi is an extremist conservative, supporting the separation of men and women. A tape from 1988 revealed his part in the deaths of 5,000 political prisoners.

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The Jordanian street is stormy and demanding to know what happened to Prince Hamza, who was accused of conspiring against King Abdullah. Prince Hamza was last seen in public about a month ago and his traces have since disappeared. He is much loved on Jordanian Street, who fears he is in solitary confinement and house arrest.

The question that preoccupies Jordanians these days is where Prince Hamza, the half-brother of King Abdullah, who has completely disappeared from the public eye, has gone. He was last seen in public on April 11, while attending a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom, since his traces have disappeared and he has also stopped appearing on social media.

King Abdullah has announced that he is at home with his family, but Jordanian residents are convinced that Prince Hamza is under house arrest and that Jordanian security officials are preventing him from making any contact with the world in an attempt to bury the conspiracy case against King Abdullah and remove it from the media agenda.

King Abdullah accused Prince Hamza of conspiring against him to undermine the security and stability situation in Jordan along with internal and external elements. He announced that he would resolve the issue within the royal family. Prince Hassan, the uncle of King Abdullah and Prince Hamza, was summoned to the mediation and Prince Hamza was forced to sign a letter in which he expressed loyalty to the king, his son the regent and the constitution of Jordan.

In contrast, Jordanian intelligence officials, who have long been involved in conspiracy against King Abdullah, have themselves arrested 18 suspects involved in conspiracy against the king, most of them Bedouin tribesmen in southern Jordan, where Prince Hamza is highly popular and frequently visited.
After the investigation, it was decided to prosecute all the suspects in the Special Security Court, but following pressure from the Bedouin tribes on the royal palace and King Abdullah's desire to buy their hearts and gain their trust, the king ordered the release of 16 detainees on the grounds of Ramadan. Will not be prosecuted.

The two who remain in custody are the senior figures to whom King Abdullah attributes a very large involvement in the affair, they were the living and fermenting spirit against the king. They acted on behalf of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, over his desire to promote President Trump's "deal of the century" and buy Saudi Arabia a "foothold" on the Temple Mount. This is because Jordan is the guardian of the holy places in Jerusalem according to the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan ("Wadi Arava" agreement).

These are Bassem Awadallah, former head of the Royal Bureau and Sheriff Hassan Ben-Zeid, a member of the royal family, both businessmen who have business activities in the UAE and are very close to the Saudi Crown Prince.

Prince Hamza, suspected of taking advantage of the difficult economic situation and popular outrage to carry out a coup against the king with the help of the two, has completely disappeared from the horizon. His mother, Queen Nur, also disappeared. This may have been done with consent or lack of choice. King Abdullah wants to hide the affair from Jordanian public opinion and also does not want any confrontation with Saudi Arabia following the involvement of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salma and his close ties with two of the conspirators.

But, the Jordanian street is not willing to give up, Prince Hamza is very popular on the Jordanian street. Much more than King Abdullah and current heir apparent Hussein bin Abdullah.

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The title reads: 

The Arab citizen and #Macron's slap🇫🇷

Adel bin Abdul Rahman al-Asumi told Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, accusing US-Europe negotiators of adopting "double standards"

The head of the Arab Parliament, the body of the Arab League, Adel bin Abdul Rahman al-Asumi, said (June 6) that the absence of Arab countries from the talks in Vienna on the Iranian nuclear program "does not serve the region."

"The current arrangements regarding the agreement with Tehran will have implications for the security and stability of the region. "Therefore, the countries concerned, and especially the Gulf states, must be present," Lasharq al-Awsat said.

He added: “The current situation does not serve either side, neither the Iranians nor the Europeans and the Americans. These negotiations are related to the fate and rights of Arab states, as the nuclear program has an impact on the security, stability and interests of the entire region. ”

He accused the negotiating parties in the US-Europe of adopting "double standards" because they did not respect the other parties, who "made sacrifices for the security of the region".

Al-Asumi also pointed to Saudi Arabia's role as King Salman bin Abdulziz in "supporting the work of the Arab parliament."

"The role of the kingdom at the level of the Arab and Islamic states seeks to protect the Arab and Gulf states from adverse effects on their security and stability," he stressed.

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