What would a J.D. Vance vice presidency mean for Iran?

For years, Israel has frequently struck Iranian-linked targets in Syria, without claiming responsibility in most cases. These attacks have intensified recently amid the Gaza conflict and ongoing clashes with Hezbollah on the Lebanon-Israel border.

However, a security source has told Al Arabiya that Katerji was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) rather than an Israeli airstrike.

Katerji, known for his close ties to the Syrian government, played a significant role in the financing operations of Iran's IRGC Quds Force and its proxies including Lebanon's Hezbollah, as reported by Al Arabiya.

The prominent businessman was killed instantly in his SUV on the highway linking Lebanon with Syria, an unnamed official from an Iran-backed group told the Associated Press on Monday.

Katerji may have been targeted because he had funded the Syrian "resistance" against Israel in the Golan Heights, as well as because of his links to Iran-backed groups in Syria, Rami Abdulrahman, the director of the London-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), told the AP.

Abdulrahman said the precision of the strike indicates a significant security breach within either Hezbollah or the Assad regime's inner circle, suggesting that highly sensitive information had been leaked to Israel.

Katerji's extensive business empire, built with his brother, is currently under US sanctions for "facilitating petroleum shipments and financing to the Syrian regime," according to the US Treasury website.

The UK has also sanctioned the Katerji brothers for "facilitating fuel, arms, and ammunition trade between the regime and various actors including ISIS (Daesh) under the guise of importing and exporting food items, supporting militias fighting alongside the regime," according to the UK Treasury Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation.

Experts, as cited by Tehran ILNA news agency recently, attribute Iran's primary challenge in these shared fields to a lack of investment.

The most substantial joint fields for Iran are with Iraq, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—neighbors that have significantly increased their oil and gas production with the help of international, particularly Western, companies. These countries have ambitious plans for further increasing their reserves extraction.

In contrast, due to limited foreign investment and a weak private sector, Iran's Ministry of Oil relies only on a 14.5% share of oil revenues for investments (a little more than $5 billion last year). Statistics from the Parliament’s Research Center underscore a significant decline in annual investment in the country's upstream oil and gas projects, dropping from around $18 billion in the 1990s to about $7 billion in the early 2010s, and further decreasing to $3 billion since 2017.

Not only international and US sanctions have reduced Iran’s oil export revenues in the past decade, but the adverse environment created by these sanctions have made foreign investment or borrowing impossible for Tehran.

The joint fields represent 20% of Iran’s extractable oil and 30% of its gas reserves. Despite holding the world's second-largest gas reserves and the fourth-largest oil reserves, with 33 trillion cubic meters and 157 billion barrels respectively, Iran faces challenges in fully exploiting these resources in collaboration with its neighbors.

Iran and Saudi Arabia

Iran shares several oil and gas fields with Saudi Arabia, producing only about 35,000 barrels per day from the Forouzan field (known as Marjan in Saudi Arabia). In contrast, Saudi Arabia produces 14 times more oil from this field and aims to increase daily production by 60% to 800,000 barrels and gas production by 70 million cubic meters under a $12 billion contract with international companies over the past five years.

Iran shares another large gas field, Farzad (called Hasbah in Saudi Arabia), where negotiations with Indian companies that discovered the field have not yielded results over two decades ago. Iran itself lacks the $5 billion investment capacity required for developing this field, while Saudi Arabia developed and commenced gas production from this joint field since 2013, currently producing over 30 million cubic meters of gas daily with Aramco's ongoing plan to swiftly increase daily production to 75 million cubic meters.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait also share two oil and gas fields, Esfandiar (Lulu) and Arash (Al-Durra), with Iran, where they have developed the Esfandiar field for years and plan to develop the latter soon. However, these two countries reject Iran's share in the Arash field, claiming exclusive rights to gas extraction, a stance Iran does not accept. Iran has not even initiated development in these fields.

Joint Fields with Iraq

Iran's largest joint oil fields are with Iraq, where Iraq extracts four times more oil than Iran from these fields. Iraq has entered significant contracts with Chinese, Russian, and Western companies to boost extraction efforts.

In 2013, Iran produced 90,000 barrels of oil per day from these fields and aimed to increase production to 1.2 million barrels per day by 2021 with Chinese assistance, focusing on fields like Yadavaran, Azadegan, Azar, Changouleh, Aban, and Paydar. However, Chinese companies fulfilled only a fraction of their commitments, leading Iran to achieve a "nominal capacity" of oil production, reaching 350,000 barrels per day from the joint West Karoun fields with Iraq.

In contrast, Iraq's oil production has surged by 1.4 million barrels per day since 2013, primarily driven by developments in joint oil fields with Iran. Iran estimates needing $11 billion in investment to develop five major joint oil fields with Iraq, an amount equivalent to just two months of the country's pre-sanctions oil revenue. However, the complex structure and predominantly heavy oil type of these fields mean that Iran's current technology can only extract 5 to 10% of the 64 billion barrels of in-situ reserves. Consequently, the involvement of advanced Western companies in developing these fields appears inevitable.

Southern neighbors

Iran shares two oil fields with the UAE, Salman and Nusrat. Both countries extract 50,000 barrels of oil per day from the Salman field. However, Iran faces challenges due to the lack of gas gathering facilities, resulting in the flaring of 11 million cubic meters of associated gas daily. In contrast, the UAE efficiently produces gas from the layers in this field. Additionally, the UAE produces 65,000 barrels per day of oil from the Nusrat field, which is 20 times more than Iran's production from the same field.

Iran also shares the Hengam oil field with Oman, with both countries producing 10,000 barrels per day.

Iran's largest gas field is South Pars (North Dome), shared with Qatar. Qatar started gas extraction a decade earlier than Iran and has produced twice as much gas. While the Iranian side of the South Pars gas field has entered its second half-life in 2023 and experiences annual production declines of 10 billion cubic meters, Qatar has recently signed $29 billion worth of contracts with international companies to increase production by 40% by 2027 and 60% by 2030. Currently, both Iran and Qatar produce 180 billion cubic meters annually from South Pars.

Iran's options for increasing production lie in installing 20,000-ton platforms equipped with large compressors—a technology dominated by Western companies. All 24 phases of the Iranian side of the South Pars field are currently operational, leaving limited room for introducing new phases to enhance production or compensate for output declines from existing phases.

Qatar also extracts 450,000 barrels of crude oil from the oil layer of South Pars gas field, which is 13 times more than Iran's production from the same layer.

Additionally, Iran and Qatar share the Rashadat oil field, with each country producing between 10,000 to 15,000 barrels per day.

The only option for Iran is to reach an agreement with the West over its nuclear program, which is seen as leading to a weapons capability. It also needs to change its hegemonial policy in the region. Without a major shift in its foreign policy, energy and other sectors in its battered economy will struggle along.

Publishing the news in a post on X, Mary Lawlor, the UN expert on Human Rights Defenders, called on Iranian authorities to release the women immediately.

Dubbed as the “Gilan 2023 Case” by observers, the activists were arbitrarily sentenced and subsequently transferred to Lakan prison this past Saturday, located in the province of Gilan in northwestern Iran.

Alongside five other activists, these six women’s summary sentences were upheld on May 28. They were sentenced to serve over 60 years in prison collectively.

Forough Saminia, Shiva Shahsiah, Negin Rezaei, Azadeh Chavoshian, and Matin Yazdani have each been sentenced to six years in prison. Jelveh Javaheri, on the other hand, received a one-year sentence.

The other activists sentenced include Zohreh Dadras, Zahra Dadras, Sara Jahani, Yasmin Hashdari and Houman Taheri.

Tagging the Iranian state’s Permanent Mission to the UN, Lawlor also called on the authorities to end the suppression of women human rights defenders in the country.

Women rights defenders charged with ‘disrupting national security’

Local rights group, Hyrcani Human Rights Media previously reported that the arrests of the six women rights defenders were made without an official summons notice and only by phone announcement.

Charges against the activists include "membership in organizations that aim to disrupt national security" and "assembly and collusion to act against national security."

According to the human rights group, Front Line Defenders their activism included advocating for various human rights issues including women’s rights, children's rights, and access to health and education in a healthy and enabling environment.

In May this year, Branch 11 of the Rasht Revolutionary Court of Appeals, headed by Judge Mohammad Sadegh Iran Aghideh, confirmed the verdicts of all the defendants in this case without holding a court session, according to Bidarzani.

Last week, on July 10, 2024, two of the activists, Zahra Dadras and Zohreh Dadras, were arrested without prior summons or notice and transferred to Lakan Prison to serve their prison sentences.

The eleven activists in this case were first detained during mid-August 2023 raids at their residences.

They were kept in solitary confinement, with their location undisclosed due to being denied legal representation and limited phone communication.

They were ultimately released on bail from Lakan prison on various dates between September 16 and October 1, 2024.

In the Shia cleric's recent statement on his Telegram channel, he said, “The cause of diseases such as dengue fever, cancer, and coronavirus are the chemical drugs. If you do not take chemical drugs, you will not get sick."

His controversial views, including his description of immunization as a "colonialist plot" and the promotion of bizarre remedies during the COVID-19 pandemic, have sparked widespread ridicule and condemnation.

He has written several books on what he calls Islamic Medicine and runs an Islamic Medicine Center. This center markets various products under the pretext of religious adherence, including Islamic toothbrushes, soap, and even ink.

He claims that adhering to Islamic teachings can cure any illness and that living a "true Islamic lifestyle" negates the need for conventional medical treatment. Tabrizian also offers his followers diagnostic advice, including guidance on "womb preparation" and "treatment of brain debility," along with prescriptions for medications such as "nerve strengthener" and "blood detoxifier."

His assertion about dengue fever contrasts with statements from Iranian health officials amid rising cases. The deputy minister of health on Monday emphasized the identification and capture of Aedes mosquitoes in five provinces, highlighting the differences between the northern and southern species. He noted that the southern variant is more aggressive and prone to spreading the disease.

During a visit to the southern Hormozgan province, Hossein Farshidi mentioned that “many dengue fever patients have come from other countries,” warning that a widespread outbreak could be “more dangerous than COVID-19.”

Maqsoud Asadi Samani, Secretary of the Association of Iranian Airlines, acknowledged the possibility of Aedes mosquitoes being transported via passenger luggage but stated that no reports have been received regarding their presence on planes.

Shahnam Arshi, head of the Center for Infectious Disease Management, also expressed concern about the spread of dengue fever from travelers from the UAE, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Arshi named Bushehr, Khuzestan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Golestan, Gilan, Mazandaran, and Hormozgan as provinces that have had cases of the disease, emphasizing that these areas are potentially at risk for Aedes mosquitoes or may face them in the future.

As of July 10, 149 Iranians have been confirmed to have dengue fever, with residents of 40 cities at risk. The Deputy Minister of Health identified environmental conditions that allow mosquito growth and disease transmission as critical factors to quash the outbreak which is not in most cases fatal, causes severe pain in the bones, joints, and muscles.

“This year, we are facing more than 70,000 teachers staying at home, and no solution has been devised to replace them,” former official Morteza Nazari stated in an interview with the "reformist" newspaper Etemad over the weekend.

Highlighting the current consequences of last year’s staff purges, Nazari argued that Raisi’s administration, driven by a punitive agenda, replaced qualified individuals with unqualified ones in educational institutions.

In September 2023, Iran's Minister of Education replaced over 20,000 principals in what many perceived as an attempt to "purge" schools following the unprecedented nationwide protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Jina Amini at the hands of the “morality police.”

Nazari added that with the new academic year starting in less than three months, there is significant uncertainty about how to fill classrooms with qualified educators.

To address the staff shortages, the Education Ministry implemented the "Amin" program, integrating Islamic religious teachers into the school system by recruiting 21,000 seminary graduates to teach in 7,000 schools.

Yet, Babak Negahdari, the head of the Iranian Parliament's Research Center, recently warned of a critical shortage of teachers, stating that 176,000 are needed for the upcoming academic year. He added that an additional 72,000 teachers are expected to retire by September 2024.

“The Ministry of Education is the largest executive body in the country, where about 45% of the human resources of the executive branch are concentrated,” Nazari said.

He added that this ministry is now being handed over to the administration amidst a plethora of problems, most notably a severe shortage of teachers. Nazari also asserted that following the Raisi administration's purges, many key positions were filled based on political affiliations rather than merit, further undermining the effectiveness of the education system.

He asserted that while previous administrations, including those of "reformists" Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Khatami, as well as hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also made some “weak appointments”, none had as many “mandated appointments” as Raisi’s administration.

In 2016, reports revealed that the administration failed to ensure equal treatment for Bahá'í students, resulting in the expulsion of thousands from educational institutions due to their faith.

The former official also maintained that the punitive nature of the late President’s initiatives led to teachers and administrators who supported students protesting against the state in 2022 being disciplined, having their salaries and ranks reduced, or being reprimanded and denied promotions.

Among the many challenges facing the country’s educational institutions, Nazari highlighted that the education budget deficit "reached a peak" under Raisi’s administration. Despite claims of prioritizing education, he noted that the financial and administrative issues have only worsened.

In 2023, the Ministry's budget per student was about 12.4 million tomans, roughly $250 per capita per year – compared to Western nations allocating between $8,000 and $20,000 per student in 2019.

Nazari said the state of Iran’s education system presents a fresh set of challenges for President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian, who must now tackle these pressing issues to restore the integrity of the nation's educational institutions.