Iran's Oil Supply Cartoons

Shares rebound, oil prices retreat despite US-Iran woes

Just shows the world doesn't really give a damn about creepy old Iran.

BANGKOK (AP) — Global stocks rebounded Tuesday following modest gains on Wall Street, despite caution over rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

U.S. officials were bracing for Iran’s response to the killing by a U.S. drone of its most powerful general, Qassem Soleimani. Noting heightened levels of military readiness in the country, Washington was preparing for a possible “tit-for-tat” attack on an American military leader.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX advanced 1% to 13,252.48 while the CAC 40 in France climbed 0.6% to 6,052.34. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.1% higher to 7,585.16. Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.2% higher,

“The positive sentiment is likely to continue for the remainder of the day as the underlying drivers of the stock market rally, the search for yield and global economic recovery, reassert themselves,” Jeffrey Halley of Oanda said in a commentary. “Only geopolitical headlines surprises from the Middle East are now likely to derail the rally.”

In Asia, most benchmarks rose, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index adding 1.6% to 23,575.72. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng picked up 0.3% to 28,322.06, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.7% to 3,104.80. In South Korea, the Kospi rose 1% to 2,175.54. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 climbed 1.4% to 6,826.40. Shares fell 0.6% in Taiwan but rose in most of Southeast Asia.

Gold was steady Tuesday after touching its highest price since April 2013 on Monday as investors sought safety amid fears the antagonisms could lead to war. It was down 40 cents at $1,568.40 per ounce.

Gold has historically performed well in times of military conflict and has climbed more than $40 since before Soleimani’s killing.

Oil prices gave up some of their recent big gains on Tuesday, with benchmark U.S. crude dropping 35 cents, or 0.6%, to $62.92 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained 22 cents to $63.27 per barrel on Monday.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, lost 45 cents, or 0.7%, to $68.46 per barrel. On Monday it added 31 cents to $68.91 per barrel.

In currency trading, the dollar rose to 108.46 Japanese yen from 108.33 yen on Monday. The euro slipped to $1.1185 from $1.1194.

Apart from waiting for next steps in the clash between the United States and Iran, several big economic reports are on the schedule this upcoming week that could move markets. The headliner is Friday’s jobs report from the government.

Solid jobs growth has helped support the U.S. economy, even as trade wars hurt manufacturing around the world. Economists expect Friday’s report to show that employers added 155,000 jobs last month. The healthy job market is one of the reasons the S&P 500 soared to its second-best showing in 22 years in 2019. Big moves by central banks around the world to shield the economy from the pain of trade wars also were big factors.

Iran TV: 35 killed in stampede at funeral for slain general

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A stampede erupted Tuesday at a funeral procession for a top Iranian general killed in a U.S. airstrike last week, killing 35 people and injuring 48 others, state television reported.

According to the report, the stampede took place in Kerman, the hometown of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, as the procession got underway. Initial videos posted online showed people lying lifeless on a road, others shouting and trying to give help them.

Iranian state TV gave the casualty toll in its online report, without saying where it obtained the information. Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of Iran’s emergency medical services, earlier spoke by telephone to state TV and confirmed the stampede took place.

“Unfortunately as a result of the stampede, some of our compatriots have been injured and some have been killed during the funeral processions,” he said.

A procession in Tehran on Monday drew over 1 million people in the Iranian capital, crowding both main thoroughfares and side streets in Tehran.

THIS IS A MAJOR NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story is below.

The leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard threatened on Tuesday to “set ablaze” places supported by the United States over the killing of a top Iranian general in a U.S. airstrike last week, sparking cries from the crowd of supporters of “Death to Israel!”

Hossein Salami made the pledge before a crowd of thousands gathered in a central square in Kerman, the hometown of the slain Gen. Qassem Soleimani. His vow mirrored the demands of top Iranian officials — from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to others — as well as supporters across the Islamic Republic, demanding retaliation against America for a slaying that’s drastically raised tensions across the Middle East.

Mourners in Kerman dressed in black carried posters bearing the image of Soleimani, a man whose slaying prompted Iran’s supreme leader to weep over his casket on Monday as a crowd said by police to be in the millions filled Tehran streets. Although there was no independent estimate, aerial footage and Associated Press journalists suggested a turnout of at least 1 million, and the throngs were visible on satellite images of Tehran taken Monday.

The outpouring of grief was an unprecedented honor for a man viewed by Iranians as a national hero for his work leading the Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force. The U.S. blames him for the killing of American troops in Iraq and accused him of plotting new attacks just before his death Friday in a drone strike near Baghdad’s airport. Soleimani also led forces in Syria backing President Bashar Assad in a long war, and he also served as the point man for Iranian proxies in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

His slaying already has pushed Tehran to abandon the remaining limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers as his successor and others vow to take revenge. In Baghdad, the parliament has called for the expulsion of all American troops from Iraqi soil, something analysts fear could allow Islamic State militants to mount a comeback.

Soleimani’s remains and those of the others killed in the airstrike were brought to a central square in Kerman, a desert city surrounded by mountains that dates back to the days of the Silk Road.

Speaking in Kerman, Salami praised Soleimani’s exploits, describing him as essential to backing Palestinian groups, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. As a martyr, Soleimani represented an even greater threat to Iran’s enemies, Salami said.

“We will take revenge. We will set ablaze where they like,” Salami said, drawing the cries of “Death to Israel!”

Israel is a longtime regional foe of Iran.

According to a report on Tuesday by the semi-official Tasnim news agency, Iran has worked up 13 sets of plans for revenge for Soleimani’s killing. The report quoted Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, as saying that even the weakest among them would be a “historic nightmare” for the U.S. He declined to give any details,

“If the U.S. troops do not leave our region voluntarily and upright, we will do something to carry their bodies horizontally out,” Shamkhani said.

Iran’s parliament, meanwhile, passed an urgent bill declaring the U.S. military’s command at the Pentagon and those acting on its behalf in Soleimani’s killing as “terrorists,” subject to Iranian sanctions. The measure appears to be an attempt to mirror a decision by President Donald Trump in April to declare the Revolutionary Guard a “terrorist organization.”

The U.S. Defense Department used the Guard’s designation as a terror organization in the U.S. to support the strike that killed Soleimani. The decision by Iran’s parliament, done by a special procedure to speed the bill to law, comes as officials across the country threaten to retaliate for Soleimani’s killing.

The vote also saw lawmakers approve funding for the Quds Force with an additional 200 million euros, or about $224 million.

Also Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the U.S. had declined to issue him a visa to travel to New York for upcoming meetings at the United Nations. The U.S. as the host of the U.N. headquarters is supposed to allow foreign officials to attend such meetings.

“This is because they fear someone will go there and tell the truth to the American people,” Zarif said. “But they are mistaken. The world is not limited to New York. You can speak with American people from Tehran too and we will do that.”

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Solemani will be buried later Tuesday between the graves of Enayatollah Talebizadeh and Mohammad Hossein Yousef Elahi, two former Guard comrades. The two died in Operation Dawn 8 in Iran’s 1980s war with Iraq in which Soleimani also took part, a 1986 amphibious assault that cut Iraq off from the Persian Gulf and led to the end of the bloody war that killed 1 million people.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Elephant Walk at Utah Air Force Base showcases 52 F-35s launching in a row

An Air Force base in Utah staged a massive ‘elephant walk’ that featured 52 of one of the country’s most advanced fighter jets launching in a row.
The F-35A II Lightning fighters were part of the Active Duty 388th and Reserve 419th fighter wings at the Hill Air Force Base in the northern part of the state, according to AirForceMag.com. The base is home to 78 of the  Fifth Generation fighters.
"Today's exercise marks the accomplishment of over four years of work — a little over four years ago, we received our first F-35," Col. Michael Ebner, 388th Wing vice commander, told the Deseret News. "We now have our full complement of aircraft and locally, we turn this into a goal of full war-fighting capability."
An “elephant walk” refers to the close formation of military aircraft before takeoff.
The base reportedly said the exercise has been planned for months but comes at a time of extreme tension between Iran and the U.S. President  Trump last week ordered the killing of a top general in Tehran. The 388th Fighter Wing tweeted a photo of the rows of jets on the runway and wrote, “We are now at full warfighting capability.”
The 388th is an operational unit that has already sent one F-35A squadron overseas on a deployment to the Middle East. That unit has since returned and a second F-35A squadron from Hill is now deployed in that region.
“The message is not just to potential adversaries, but it’s also to our nation’s leadership that they can count on the 388th Fighter Wing to support the combat power that they plan and require us to provide,” Ebner told the paper.
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Netanyahu says Israel should 'stay out' of fallout from US killing of Soleimani, per report

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to distance himself from the U.S.-led airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, telling Security Cabinet ministers on Monday that Israel should "stay out of it."
“The killing of Soleimani is a U.S. event, not an Israeli event, and we should stay out of it," Netanyahu said, according to reports by Axios that cited two ministers who attended the meeting.

The prime minister gave further instructions for Cabinet officials not to engage the press in commentary about the attack -- which has ramped up the tensions between the U.S. and the Middle East and escalated the likelihood of a retaliatory attack -- in order to ensure that Israel's longtime rivals do not get the impression that it was involved in Thursday's deadly drone strike.
The director of Mossad, a branch of the Israeli Intelligence Community, told ministers they were not expecting any attacks from Iran because "Israel stayed in a distance from the incident," adding that the leaders should expect Iran efforts towards retaliation to become more apparent on Tuesday after the national three-day period of mourning for Soleimani is over.
A former chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said Sunday the Israeli city of Haifa and Israeli military centers would be included in Tehran’s retaliation for Soleimani's death, according to Reuters.
“Iran’s revenge against America for the assassination of Soleimani will be severe. ... Haifa and Israeli military centers will be included in the retaliation,” Mohsen Rezaei said in a televised speech to mourners in Tehran.
Following the attack, where the U.S. launched three rockets at Baghdad International Airport, killing the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, and five other people, Netanyahu issued a statement with brief congratulatory remarks to President Trump, a longstanding ally in the region.
"Qassem Soleimani brought about the death of many American citizens and many other innocents in recent decades and at present. Soleimani initiated, planned and carried out many terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East and beyond," Netanyahu said. “President Trump is deserving of all esteem for taking determined, strong and quick action. I would like to reiterate — Israel fully stands alongside the U.S. in the just struggle for security, peace and self-defense.”
Netanyahu reiterated to Cabinet ministers Monday that although Israel did not take part in the attack, they support the U.S.' right to defend itself.

Iran’s supreme leader Cartoons

Election year to feature bitter fights, deepening divides

NEW YORK (AP) — Four years after President Donald Trump drove the rules of politics over a cliff to win the Republican presidential nomination and ultimately the White House, Democrats will go through their own version of the same test.

In less than a month, Democratic voters will begin the formal process of sifting through a historically large field of candidates. The options include progressives who have inspired energy — and strong opposition — by rejecting traditional party politics and pushing for fundamental changes to America’s political, social and economic systems. Voters could pick the oldest nominee in the party’s history — or the youngest.

Ironies abound at the outset of the Democratic primary.

The oldest candidate at 78, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, has a loyal following among young voters but has yet to prove he can build a broader coalition. Older voters, meanwhile, have shown interest in Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, whose moderate vision has been greeted with skepticism by many fellow millennials.

And a party that prides itself on valuing diversity is contending with a top tier that is all white and mostly male.

The battle for the White House will unfold amid a great political realignment that is disrupting decades-long political alliances and further dividing America by education, gender and race. That means the election will likely serve as a referendum not only on the candidates, but also the country and its definition of the American presidency.

Some of Trump’s most influential allies say he is ready and willing to make 2020 the nastiest presidential contest in living memory.

Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser who has long fanned the flames of Trump’s scorched-earth politics, indicated that Trump would lean more aggressively into populism and nationalism over the coming year. And he offered a warning to Democrats who have engaged in a largely polite nomination fight so far: The “pillow fight” is almost over.

“This will be one for the ages. You’re going to get full Trump at max speed,” Bannon told The Associated Press.

Trump and his massive political machine are an ever-present force in the Democratic contest. The most important question each candidate must answer is why they are best positioned to defeat a president many in the party consider an existential threat to democracy.

Trump has already hurled personal and policy attacks at his Democratic opponents, even inviting assistance from foreign governments to defeat them. And with his surprise move last week to strike Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Trump showed how he can use the powers of the presidency to scramble American politics in an instant.

In a race that was already certain to be brutish, Trump’s decision to order the attack prompted some Democratic candidates to suggest he may have done so to divert attention from his impeachment trial.

The urgent question of which Democrat will ultimately challenge Trump will take months to resolve. The winnowing process formally begins with Iowa’s Feb. 3 caucus and ends at the party’s mid-July national convention after every state and U.S. territory holds its own primary contest.

The candidates represent the ideological diversity of an evolving Democratic Party that is teetering on the edge of its own civil war, united if only by overwhelming disdain for Trump.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Buttigieg represent the party’s moderate wing, favoring a more cautious shift leftward on core issues like health care, education and immigration. On the other side, Elizabeth Warren, a 70-year-old progressive Massachusetts senator, and Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, are fighting for transformational changes including a shift to a single-payer health care system.

At the same time, one of the richest men in the world, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is trying to use his fortune to rewrite the rules of primary politics. The $50 billion man, who registered as a Democrat little more than a year ago, will ignore the first four states on the primary calendar and focus instead on more than a dozen Super Tuesday states in early March.

Political operatives are skeptical, and many progressives are disgusted, yet the strategy promises to complicate and prolong the bitter primary season.

Each Democratic faction is convinced that the other will trigger the very thing they fear most: Trump’s reelection.

“If we nominate a candidate that I would describe as far left, extreme left, I think that unfortunately, a lot of union members will just not get there,” said Biden supporter Harold Schaitberger, the general president of the International Association of Firefighters, who specifically warned Democrats against nominating Sanders or Warren.

The case for a moderate Democrat lies with the belief that white, working-class men in a handful of states will largely decide Trump’s fate in November.

Non-college-educated white men shifted sharply away from the Democratic Party in 2016, fueling razor-thin victories for Trump in three states that previously made up the Democrats’ “blue wall”: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If Trump can hold same states again in 2020, he will return to the White House for another four years.

Schaitberger fears that some Democrats don’t appreciate the dire nature of the situation that continues in the Midwest, where many of his union members remain concerned by the leftward shift of the Democratic Party.

“It doesn’t matter if we get 10 million more votes in California or 4 million more votes in New York or Massachusetts, you gotta be able to come up in the battlegrounds with an electoral victory,” Schaitberger said, pointing to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida as the states that matter most.

Alexandra Rojas, executive director of the liberal group Justice Democrats, feels just as strongly that her party must nominate a “bold progressive” like Sanders or Warren to take back the presidency. She and thousands of like-minded activists are fighting Biden and Buttigieg’s candidacies, outraged by their reliance on wealthy donors and their refusal to embrace transformative domestic policies like Medicare for All, which would replace the U.S. private insurance system with free government-backed health coverage for all Americans.

“We’re fighting like we have nothing to lose,” Rojas declared.

She predicted that Democrats would ultimately come together after an explosive primary fight. Given several factors working in the Republican president’s favor, the Democrats’ feuding factions have no choice but to unite if they hope to take back the White House.

Rarely in modern political history has an incumbent president failed to win reelection in the midst of economic growth. And while there is debate about the strength of the U.S. economy, there is no debating the numbers: unemployment rates and the stock market are better today than when Trump took office.

Meanwhile, Trump amassed the largest political fortune in U.S. history heading into an election year, which he’s already using to construct a massive political machine. Backed by more than $100 million in his campaign account to begin the year, his team insists it can expand the traditional political battleground this fall to compete in Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, New Mexico and even Oregon.

While he is optimistic, evangelical leader and Trump confidant Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, said it’s too early to predict a Trump electoral landslide. But he’s calling on all Republicans to embrace the Trump playbook.

“He’s teaching Republicans a lesson that I hope they learn — that nobody’s going to support them if they continue to be so diplomatic and so, what’s the word I’m looking for? I mean they act like royalty, like it’s beneath them to get down in the mud and fight,” Falwell said in an interview. “The people have been looking for somebody who will get down in the mud and fight, and wade in up to their waste. Trump’s the first one who’s the done that.”

Indeed, Trump has eagerly attacked anyone and everyone who has criticized his personal style or governing decisions, even members of his own administration at times. He has already used ethnic slurs to go after Warren, raised questions about Sanders’ age, falsely called his rivals socialists, and openly encouraged foreign governments — namely Ukraine and China — to dig up dirt on Biden.

As his political base cheers, such tactics threaten to inflict lasting damage on Trump’s standing with some voters — especially women.

Democrats scored sweeping victories in the 2018 and 2019 as college-educated women, particularly in America’s suburbs, turned their backs on Trump’s GOP. At the same time, there is evidence that younger voters and minorities are both energized and repelled by Trump entering the new year.

Bannon insisted the GOP has become the “working-class party” under Trump, although he has some concern about Trump’s standing with working-class women. His more serious concern, however, lies with the narrow, but vocal slice of establishment-minded Republicans who are fighting his reelection.

He referenced the recent birth of an anti-Trump group dubbed the Lincoln Project, led by veteran Republican strategists who are planning a nationwide campaign to convince disaffected Republicans and independent voters to vote Democrat. The group’s leadership features conservative attorney George Conway, who is the husband of Trump’s chief White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

“We need the Republican establishment on board,” Bannon said, noting that Trump essentially won the presidency because of less than 80,000 combined votes across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — “an inside straight,” he called it.

“If these guys can peel off 3% or 4%, that’s going to be serious,” he said of Trump’s Republican rivals.

Yet for all the talk of shifting voting blocs, intra-party fights and what will almost certainly be the most expensive campaign in the history of the world, Bannon believes that Trump’s fate will ultimately be decided by one man.

“Only Trump can beat Trump,” he said.

Weeping, Iran supreme leader prays over general slain by US

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Weeping amid wails from a crowd of hundreds of thousands of mourners, Iran’s supreme leader on Monday prayed over the remains of a top Iranian general killed in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, an attack that’s drastically raised tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The targeted killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani already has seen his replacement vow to take revenge. Additionally, Tehran has abandoned the remaining limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers in response to the slaying while in Iraq, the parliament has called for the expulsion of all American troops from Iraqi soil.

The developments could bring Iran closer to building an atomic bomb, set off a proxy or military attack launched by Tehran against America and enable the Islamic State group to stage a comeback in Iraq, making the Middle East a far more dangerous and unstable place.

Adding to the tensions, President Donald Trump threatened to demand billions of dollars in compensation from Iraq or impose “sanctions like they’ve never seen before” if it goes through with expelling U.S. troops.

Soleimani’s daughter, Zeinab, directly threatened an attack on the U.S. military in the Mideast while speaking to a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Tehran that stretched as far as the eye could see. Iranian state TV put the crowd size at “millions,” though that number could not be verified.

“The families of the American soldiers in western Asia ... will spend their days waiting for the death of their children,” she said to cheers. Iranian state television and others online shared a video that showed Trump’s American flag tweet following Soleimani’s killing turn into a coffin, the “likes” of the tweet replaced by over 143,000 “killed” with the hashtag #severerevenge.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself prayed over the caskets of Soleimani and others slain in the attack. Khamenei, who had a close relationship with Soleimani, wept at one point during the traditional Muslim prayers for the dead. The crowd wailed.

Soleimani’s successor, Esmail Ghaani stood near Khamenei’s side, as did Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and other top leaders in the Islamic Republic. While Iran recently faced nationwide protests over government-set gasoline prices that reportedly killed over 300 people, Soleimani’s mass processionals has seen politicians and leaders across the Islamic Republic’s political spectrum take part, temporarily silencing that anger.

Demonstrators burned Israeli and U.S. flags, carried a flag-draped U.S. coffin or effigies of Trump. Some described Trump himself as a legitimate target for Iran’s revenge.

Mohammad Milad Rashidi, a 26-year-old university graduate, predicted more tension ahead.

“Trump demolished the chance for any sort of possible agreement between Tehran and Washington,” Rashidi said. “There will be more conflict in the future for sure.”

Ghaani made his own threat in an interview with Iranian state television aired Monday. “God the Almighty has promised to get his revenge, and God is the main avenger. Certainly actions will be taken,” he said.

Markets reacted Monday to the tensions, sending international benchmark Brent crude above $70 a barrel. The Middle East remains a crucial source of oil and Iran in the past has threatened the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all the world’s oil traded passes.

Ghaani, a longtime Soleimani deputy, has now taken over as the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, an expeditionary arm of the paramilitary organization answerable only to Khamenei. Ghaani has been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2012 for his work funding its operations around the world, including its work with proxies in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

Those proxies likely will be involved in any operation targeting U.S. interests in the Mideast or elsewhere in the world.

Already, the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia warned Americans “of the heightened risk of missile and drone attacks.” In Lebanon, the leader of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said Soleimani’s killing made U.S. military bases, warships and service members across the region fair game for attacks. A former Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader suggested the Israeli city of Haifa and others could be targeted should the U.S. attack Iran.

“We promise to continue down martyr Soleimani’s path as firmly as before with help of God, and in return for his martyrdom we aim to get rid of America from the region,” Ghaani said.

The head of the Guard’s aerospace program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, suggested Iran’s response wouldn’t stop with a single attack.

“Firing a couple of missiles, hitting a base or even killing Trump is not valuable enough to compensate for martyr Soleimani’s blood,” Hajizadeh said on state TV. “The only thing that can compensate for his blood is the complete removal of America from the region and taking away their evil from the oppressed people of the region.”

On the nuclear deal, Iranian state television cited Sunday a statement by Rouhani’s administration saying the country would not observe the nuclear deal’s restrictions on fuel enrichment, on the size of its enriched uranium stockpile and on its research and development activities.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson specifically urged Iran to “withdraw all measures” not in line with the 2015 agreement that was intended to stop Tehran from pursuing its atomic weapons program.

Iran insisted that it remains open to negotiations with European partners over its nuclear program. And it did not back off from earlier promises that it wouldn’t seek a nuclear weapon.

However, the announcement represents the clearest nuclear proliferation threat yet made by Iran since Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 and reimposed sanctions last year. It further raises regional tensions, as Iran’s longtime foe Israel has promised never to allow Iran to produce an atomic bomb.

Iran did not elaborate on what levels it would immediately reach in its program. Tehran has already broken some of the deal’s limits as part of a step-by-step pressure campaign to get sanctions relief. It already has increased its production, begun enriching uranium to 5% and restarted enrichment at an underground facility.

While it does not possess uranium enriched to weapons-grade levels of 90%, any push forward narrows the estimated one-year “breakout time” needed for it to have enough material to build a nuclear weapon if it chose to do so.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations watchdog observing Iran’s program, did not respond to a request for comment. However, Iran said that its cooperation with the IAEA “will continue as before.”

Soleimani’s killing has escalated the crisis between Tehran and Washington after months of back-and-forth attacks and threats that have put the wider Middle East on edge. Iran has promised “harsh revenge” while Trump has vowed on Twitter that the U.S. will strike back at 52 targets “VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. ”

He doubled down on that threat Sunday, dismissing warnings that targeting cultural sites could be a war crime under international law.

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump told reporters.

The processions for Soleimani mark the first time Iran honored a single man with a multi-city ceremony. Not even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic, received such a processional with his death in 1989.

Soleimani will be buried in his hometown of Kerman.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.