Instagram is looking to channel the anger of its users by introducing a new feature that allows them to report various problems with the app by shaking their phones.
“Have you ever used Instagram and it wasn’t working like it was supposed to? It was just really getting you… really just pissing you off?” Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri asked his followers in a clip uploaded to Twitter on Wednesday.
Well, precisely for infuriating situations like that, the platform has developed a feature it’s calling “rage shake,” he announced.
Shaking your phone will, from now on, cause a special form to pop up on screen, allowing you to instantly report issues such as photos not uploading or audio not playing.
The form is also the perfect place to let out “all the emotions and feels you’ve got going on,” Mosseri insisted, assuring Instagrammers that these reports would be promptly dealt with.
Thanks to their feedback, Instagram will be able to optimize its bug-fixing process, he said. The option, which he described as a “hidden gem,” is so far available only in the US, on both iOS and Android.
The Instagram boss gently shook his own cellphone in the clip to demonstrate the feature in action. However, it’s likely upset users may well end up rage-shaking with a good deal more passion, which could increase the risk of a gadget being damaged, or their owner or even a passerby being struck should the phone fly out of their hand.
Mosseri also didn’t advise the public what to do with their rage over media revelations about alleged shady practices by Instagram and the platform’s owner, Facebook.
Among the trove of papers recently leaked by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen was an internal study from 2020 reporting that Instagram was causing many of its young users, particularly teen girls, to suffer mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. However, the platform kept operating in the same manner despite this finding, with changes being promised only after the study made headlines this September.
Instagram is looking to channel the anger of its users by introducing a new feature that allows them to report various problems with the app by shaking their phones.
“Have you ever used Instagram and it wasn’t working like it was supposed to? It was just really getting you… really just pissing you off?” Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri asked his followers in a clip uploaded to Twitter on Wednesday.
Well, precisely for infuriating situations like that, the platform has developed a feature it’s calling “rage shake,” he announced.
Shaking your phone will, from now on, cause a special form to pop up on screen, allowing you to instantly report issues such as photos not uploading or audio not playing.
The form is also the perfect place to let out “all the emotions and feels you’ve got going on,” Mosseri insisted, assuring Instagrammers that these reports would be promptly dealt with.
Thanks to their feedback, Instagram will be able to optimize its bug-fixing process, he said. The option, which he described as a “hidden gem,” is so far available only in the US, on both iOS and Android.
The Instagram boss gently shook his own cellphone in the clip to demonstrate the feature in action. However, it’s likely upset users may well end up rage-shaking with a good deal more passion, which could increase the risk of a gadget being damaged, or their owner or even a passerby being struck should the phone fly out of their hand.
Mosseri also didn’t advise the public what to do with their rage over media revelations about alleged shady practices by Instagram and the platform’s owner, Facebook.
Among the trove of papers recently leaked by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen was an internal study from 2020 reporting that Instagram was causing many of its young users, particularly teen girls, to suffer mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. However, the platform kept operating in the same manner despite this finding, with changes being promised only after the study made headlines this September.
Scientists have used artificial intelligence to “predict” formulas for new designer drugs, with the stated goal of helping to improve their regulation. The AI generated formulas for nearly nine million potential new drugs.
Researchers with the University of British Columbia (UBC) used a deep neural net for the job, teaching it to make up chemical structures of potential new drugs. According to their study, released this week, the computer intelligence fared better at the task than the scientists had expected.
The research team used a database of known designer drugs – synthetic psychoactive substances – to train the AI on their structures. The market for designer drugs is ever-changing, since their manufacturers are constantly tweaking their formulas to circumvent restrictions and produce new “legal” substances, while cracking their structure takes months for law enforcement agencies, the researchers said.
“The vast majority of these designer drugs have never been tested in humans and are completely unregulated. They are a major public-health concern to emergency departments across the world,” one of the researchers, UBC medical student Dr. Michael Skinnider has said.
After its training, the AI was able to generate some 8.9 million potential designer drugs. Afterwards, researchers ran a data sheet of some 196 new drugs, which had emerged in real life after the model was trained, and found that more than 90% of these have been already predicted by the computer.
“The fact that we can predict what designer drugs are likely to emerge on the market before they actually appear is a bit like the 2002 sci-fi movie, Minority Report, where foreknowledge about criminal activities about to take place helped significantly reduce crime in a future world,” senior author Dr. David Wishart, a professor of computing science at the University of Alberta, has said.
Identifying completely unknown substances remains an issue for the AI, the research team has noted, but they hope it might potentially help with that task, since the computer was also able to predict which formulas of designer drugs were more likely to be created and hit the market. The model “ranked the correct chemical structure of an unidentified designer drug among the top 10 candidates 72 percent of the time,” while throwing in spectrometry analysis, which is an easily obtained measurement, bumped the accuracy to some 86%.
“It was shocking to us that the model performed this well, because elucidating entire chemical structures from just an accurate mass measurement is generally thought to be an unsolvable problem,” Skinnider stated.
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Austria will introduce a full lockdown that could last for three weeks on Monday in an attempt to tackle a new wave of Covid-19 infections. The government has also ordered the entire population to get vaccinated from February 1.
On Friday, conservative Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg told a news conference that a complete lockdown of the nation would begin on Monday and last for an initial 10 days.
He stated that the restrictions could be extended if infection rates did not start to fall, but he insisted the lockdown would not exceed 20 days.
The measures concern the entire Austrian population. The government has already imposed a partial lockdown on the unvaccinated in an effort to reduce hospitalization rates amid a surge in Covid-19 cases.
When the full lockdown ends, restrictions will remain in place for the unvaccinated.
Schallenberg’s announcement came after a meeting of nine state governors, two of whom had already vowed to introduce full lockdowns in their regions on Monday, in the western province of Tyrol.
The chancellor also announced that vaccinations would be mandatory from February 1. “We haven’t been able to convince enough people to vaccinate. For too long, I and others have assumed that you can convince people to get vaccinated,” he added, giving his rationale for the mandate.
Schallenberg said he lamented the political forces, radical opposition, and fake news fighting against vaccination.
Austria has one of the lowest vaccination rates in western Europe, with only 65% inoculated against the deadly virus according to data from Johns Hopkins university.
Infection rates are almost among the highest on the continent. The seven-day incidence rate stands at 971.5 per 100,000 people.
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As information emerges about Islamic State of Khorasan, or ISIS-K – the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for last week’s suicide attack that killed 13 US service members and more than 160 Afghans – there is an increased effort to predict how Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, may emerge once again as a breeding ground for terrorist groups.
A United Nations report released in June estimates that thousands of fighters from the region had already poured into Afghanistan. Many of them are believed to be affiliated with either the Taliban – still seen as a terrorist organization – or al Qaeda or ISIS-K.
The New York Times reports that ISIS-K was created six years ago by members of the Pakistani branch of the Taliban. There is a range of thought among experts as to what their ability to successfully carry out a terrorist attack in a Taliban-ruled area means for the terrorist threat moving forward.
The Cipher Brief spoke with respected terrorism experts Bruce Hoffman, Mitch Silber and Colin Clarke to get their thoughts on the current risk of terrorist attacks against Americans both home and abroad.
Bruce Hoffman, Terrorism Expert and Professor, Georgetown University
Cipher Brief ExpertBruce Hoffmanis a professor at Georgetown University and served as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization. He is also a Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at CIA.
Mitch Silber, Former Director of Analysis, NYPD
Cipher Brief Expert Mitch Silberserved as Director of Intelligence Analysis at the New York City Police Department and served as principal advisor to the Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence on counterterrorism policy and analysis. He is now executive director of the Community Security Initiative.
Colin Clarke, Director of Policy and Research, The Soufan Group
Colin P. Clarke, Ph.D., is the Director of Policy and Research at The Soufan Group. Clarke’s research focuses on domestic and transnational terrorism, international security, and geopolitics. He is also a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center.
The Cipher Brief: If the United Nations Report issued in June is accurate, and there are thousands of fighters from the region who have poured into Afghanistan – many associated with known terrorist groups – is there any way that the administration can say ‘mission accomplished’ in terms of degrading terrorism’s presence in Afghanistan?
Hoffman: No. As those numbers from the report released by the United Nations Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team highlight, Afghanistan is again becoming a jihadi magnet and will likely continue to be so into the future. The suicide bomb attacks outside the gates of Kabul International Airport last Thursday underscore the multiplicity of terrorist groups already present in that country.
In addition to ISIS-K, there is the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda and, of course, the Taliban. Terrorism thrives in conditions of chaos and instability which the terrorists hope to spread to other countries and eventually across regions.
Much as Salafi-Jihadi terrorists migrated from existing battlefields in South Asia back to the Middle East, North Africa, and the Caucasus in the 1990s; spread to East and West Africa in the early 2000s; blossomed during the Arab Spring to wage civil wars in Syria, Libya, and the Sahel, in the early twenty-teens; the same phenomenon is unfolding in Afghanistan.
Silber: Frankly, I don’t think any of the four administrations can make the claim that the policy goal of making Afghanistan inhospitable to serve as a safe haven for Al Qaeda or other similarly oriented jihadist groups has been accomplished. Certainly, at a number of times during the last twenty years, the threat that jihadist groups, most importantly — Al Qaeda — has presented, in terms of their ability to project a threat to the United States has been diminished, the degradation of the threat was only temporary.
The Cipher Brief: How confident are you that Al Qaeda and ISIS are unable to plan and execute attacks against the U.S. domestically?
Hoffman: The credulous Doha negotiations with the Taliban that led to the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and subsequently to the Taliban’s blitzkrieg across Afghanistan and then to the shambolic evacuation of our diplomats and citizens, has painted a huge target on America’s back. Like sharks in the water, terrorists will smell blood. As my Council on Foreign Relations colleague, Jacob Ware, and I wrote in War on the Rocks, in May, every time terrorism has forced the U.S. to withdraw from a conflict zone where it had committed ground forces, whether in Lebanon in 1984; Somalia in 1993; and Iraq in 2011, it has led to more terrorism worldwide, not less, and thus made the U.S. less safe.
At a time when our country continues to grapple with the COVID pandemic; when climate change is pulverizing the Gulf States with Hurricane Ida and California with worsening wildfires; when the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building continues to smolder with incidents such as the bomb threat that paralyzed the area near the Library of Congress and Cannon House Office Building earlier this month; coupled with ongoing cyberattacks and peer competition from China and Russia and concerns over Iran’s nuclear aspirations; our terrorist adversaries may well conclude that the U.S. is sufficiently preoccupied or distracted by any or all of the preceding and therefore conclude that the time to strike the homeland is opportune. It would very unlikely entail a repeat of the catastrophic September 11th 2001 attacks. But a terrorist strike along the lines of the 2019 shootings at Naval Air Station Pensacola; the 2017 suicide bombing of a concert venue in Manchester, England; the coordinated suicide attacks on London transport in 2005; the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings; or any kind of significant lone wolf incident perpetrated in the name of some existing terrorist movement would likely re-create the widespread fear and anxiety that are terrorism’s stock-in-trade. Twice in the past three years, it should also be noted, members of al-Shabaab – perhaps al Qaeda’s least technologically proficient franchise – have been arrested both in the Philippines and in an undisclosed African country engaging in the same flight training that four of the 9/11 hijackers undertook before their fateful, history-changing coordinated attack.
Silber: At this very moment, it is unlikely that Al Qaeda or ISIS-K have the infrastructure, resources, recruits and external planning ability to strike the United States based on statements by the IC and senior DoD officials to Congress. However, without any, or only limited external pressure by the U.S. military as a result of the retreat from Afghanistan, these networks and capabilities can be reconstituted in the coming months and certainly groups like Al Qaeda have never given up their desire to strike the American homeland.
Clarke: I think it is unlikely that AQ or ISIS will be able to attack the U.S. homeland. We’ve spent the better part of the past two decades shoring up homeland defense. We’ve got CT tools now that we didn’t have twenty years ago. That said, the picture could look quite different 6, 12, 18 months from now. Both of those organizations are capable of regenerating an external operations planning capability. There is also the worry of inspired attacks.
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The Cipher Brief: Some analysts have said that morale among terrorist or Islamic extremist groups is extremely high due to the circumstances surrounding the US pullout in Afghanistan, do you agree and if so what does that mean?
Hoffman: Yes. Of course. Both Sunni and Shi’a terrorist movements around the globe have applauded the Taliban’s re-conquest of Afghanistan and routing of the U.S. military. For Sunni Salafi-Jihadi terrorists, the events there this past month validate the strategy articulated by Usama bin Laden just before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when he described the ease with which al-Qaeda had been able to “bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat” from Afghanistan in 1989, and predicted that the same fate would eventually befall the U.S. And, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, a Shi’a terrorist organization, for instance, last week delivered a sermon where he described America’s “historic and humiliating defeat in Afghanistan as representing, “the moral downfall of America.”
Silber: Jihadi chat rooms and online extremist networks are feeling like they have the wind behind them. It took twenty years, but before the 20th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 an Islamic emirate has been re-established in Afghanistan. Suddenly, what seemed impossible has become possible and Islamist insurgencies all throughout the Middle East and South Asia can take inspiration by the determination of the Taliban in their efforts to overthrow a secular democratic government and replace it with an Islamist one.
Clarke: I do expect morale to be high among terrorist and especially Islamic extremists given the turn of events we’ve seen in Afghanistan. We’re a week and a half out from the 20-year anniversary of 9/11, and Al Qaeda leaders are returning to Afghanistan (this is being displayed in AQ propaganda). We’ve seen al-Qaeda affiliates all over the globe congratulating the Taliban for their victory. I don’t want to overstate the case here, but I do believe that what has occurred in Afghanistan will be a serious boost for the global jihadist movement right at the same time the U.S. and its allies are shifting from counterterrorism to great power competition. There will be fewer resources and energy to deal with terrorists, right at the time we have major threats metastasizing in Afghanistan, potentially with both a reinvigorated al-Qaeda and a stubbornly resilient ISKP.
Go beyond the headlines with expert perspectives on today’s news with The Cipher Brief’s Daily Open-Source Podcast. Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Austria will introduce a full lockdown that could last for three weeks on Monday in an attempt to tackle a new wave of Covid-19 infections. The government has also ordered the entire population to get vaccinated from February 1.
On Friday, conservative Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg told a news conference that a complete lockdown of the nation would begin on Monday and last for an initial 10 days.
He stated that the restrictions could be extended if infection rates did not start to fall, but he insisted the lockdown would not exceed 20 days.
The measures concern the entire Austrian population. The government has already imposed a partial lockdown on the unvaccinated in an effort to reduce hospitalization rates amid a surge in Covid-19 cases.
When the full lockdown ends, restrictions will remain in place for the unvaccinated.
Schallenberg’s announcement came after a meeting of nine state governors, two of whom had already vowed to introduce full lockdowns in their regions on Monday, in the western province of Tyrol.
The chancellor also announced that vaccinations would be mandatory from February 1. “We haven’t been able to convince enough people to vaccinate. For too long, I and others have assumed that you can convince people to get vaccinated,” he added, giving his rationale for the mandate.
Schallenberg said he lamented the political forces, radical opposition, and fake news fighting against vaccination.
Austria has one of the lowest vaccination rates in western Europe, with only 65% inoculated against the deadly virus according to data from Johns Hopkins university.
Infection rates are almost among the highest on the continent. The seven-day incidence rate stands at 971.5 per 100,000 people.
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People are weird. They cook and eat the strangest things. This time it’s an octopus stuffed inside a turkey, sitting on top of crab legs, and (optionally) garnished with bacon strips. This monstrous culinary invention was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, and honestly… it looks like a crime against food.
If this gallery wasn’t disgusting enough for you, you should also check out pre-cooked canned chicken that we’ve previously featured on this fun and useful site. We know you’ll love it!
The Middle East has demanded Washington’s attention on an almost weekly basis since President Biden took office in January. Since then, the White House has made the decision to speed up the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, has been faced with militia attacks in Iraq, Hamas attacks on Israel, the collapse of Lebanon, political instability in Jordan, OPEC issues, a political crisis in Tunisia, Houthi rejection of diplomacy in Yemen, Iran’s refusal to return to the nuclear deal, and most recently, attacks believed to be perpetrated by Iran against tanker ships. This of course, is occurring as COVID continues to ravage regional economies and undermine the stability of fragile states. And let’s not forget that Al Qaeda and ISIS remain active throughout the region.
The Cipher Brief tapped Expert Norman Roule for insights into what all of this means for the Biden Administration and the rest of us in the coming months.
Norman T. Roule, Middle East Expert, Former National Intelligence Manager for Iran, ODNI
Norman Roule served for 34-years in the Central Intelligence Agency, managing numerous programs relating to Iran and the Middle East. He served as the National Intelligence Manager for Iran (NIM-I) at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from November 2008 until September 2017. As NIM-I, he was the principal Intelligence Community (IC) official responsible for overseeing all aspects of national intelligence policy and activities related to Iran, to include IC engagement on Iran issues with senior policy makers in the National Security Council and the Department of State.
The Cipher Brief:Let’s start broadly. The Biden Administration has had a lot to deal with in the Middle East since the president took office in January. How are they doing?
Roule: I think it’s too early to assesses the administration’s performance. The Biden administration arrived with several broad goals. It promised to reduce American military forces in the region, rely more on diplomacy and cooperation with Europe to resolve regional problems, and adjust relations with long-time regional partners like Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the challenges of the region are long-standing and routinely intrude upon Washington’s foreign policy agenda. And U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has become a sharply partisan issue.
The administration’s response to events that have transpired in the region since the beginning of the year, has reassured those who looked for a greater emphasis on diplomacy. Washington assigned experienced envoys to contain multi-party issues and coordinated with Europe to limit U.S. involvement. The Secretary of State and his deputy have made high-profile visits to the region. The President has hosted such leaders as the King of Jordan and the Prime Minister of Iraq. And National Security Council engagement with Israel is routine. U.S. military shifts have taken place, but the administration still prioritizes security cooperation with regional partners. However, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is perceived by many as precipitous. Others worry that the U.S. has joined Europe in overlooking Iran’s attempts to change the political DNA of Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The U.S. response to the Houthi’s use of Iran-supplied missiles and drones against civilian targets remains mainly rhetorical despite the lethal threat this poses to Saudis, Americans, and others living in the Kingdom.
The Cipher Brief:That’s a sobering review. Is there any good news from the region for this administration?
Roule: Actually, quite a bit. The administration has found that regional states will collaborate on complex issues beyond the region. Qatar plays a unique role in U.S. Afghan policy. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are essential partners in resolving East African crises.
Regional leaders place great value on security cooperation as well as robust engagement with the U.S. private sector. Al-Qaeda and ISIS remain a threat, but at a fraction of their past potency.
Long-overdue political and economic reforms continue, albeit not at the pace or scale some Western observers seek. Saudi Arabia has introduced notable human rights reforms. A growing number of countries in the region have undertaken high-profile efforts to combat corruption and reshape their economies. Oman has begun the long road to restructuring its economy. Iraq and Libya remain intact despite their fractious polities.
I think the administration has also been impressed by the efforts of the Gulf states to diversify their economies, particularly in the area of green energy. The visits by U.S. Climate Envoy Secretary Kerry have been quite popular, probably more than some expected. I see plenty of momentum for growth here.
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The Cipher Brief:The Iranian nuclear talks appear to have stalled. How did this happen? And what will it take for Iran to return to the deal?
Roule: Iran will return to the nuclear deal when it first believes it has wrung every concession out of the West in order to shield its economy from sanctions that could follow its non-nuclear aggression. It will also seek to ensure that it has fatally compromised the U.S. ability to reimpose sanctions within the nuclear deal itself. The Biden administration pledged a return to the deal as written, an end to the maximum pressure policy of its predecessor, and a rejection of regime change. More broadly, it also announced an intention to reduce the U.S. military presence in the region, a reassessment of Washington’s relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and support for regional engagement with Iran. Some believe that the administration may even have turned a blind eye to Chinese purchases of Iranian oil as a signal to Tehran of Washington’s goodwill. If reasonable leaders ruled Iran, all of this should have produced an early return to the deal. But Iran’s leaders are rarely seen as reasonable. Iran could have chosen a fast return to the deal. Instead, it pushed for what all members of the P5+1 agree are unreasonable demands.
At this point, conditions aren’t favorable for an Iranian return to the deal in the near term. First, Tehran has pocketed all the benefits offered by the Biden administration’s initial approach without any concessions of its own.
We should also consider that Iran’s leaders may not want to return to the deal. Tehran’s primary goal in the 2015 nuclear deal was to obtain sanctions protections against the most vulnerable sectors of its economy in exchange for constraints on its civilian nuclear program. Tehran found that an end of nuclear sanctions did not solve the economic problems which produced domestic unrest, nor did the imposition of sanctions threaten the regime. Sanctions indeed constrained Iran’s ability to support proxies in the region, but even this was tolerable for the regime.
Next, Iran’s economy has stabilized somewhat in recent months. It remains in terrible shape but not so bad that the survival of the system is in question.
Last, we need to remember that Iran has historically offered concessions when confronted by a united international threat. Whatever your views on the nuclear deal, its very existence fragments international unity against Iran, which has always been a critical goal for Iran’s leaders. Support of the deal may bring us closer to Europe, Russia, and China but inevitably make regional partners believe we have ignored their valid security interests since there is little reason to believe Iran will moderate its non-nuclear behavior. Opposition to the nuclear talks may win support from Israel and Iran’s neighbors but it also invites friction with Europe, Russia, and China. These countries generally reject non-economic coercion against Iran and say relatively little about Iran’s regional adventurism.
The Cipher Brief:With a new president, will Iran’s new leadership continue to participate in the nuclear talks? What will it take for Iran to return to the deal?
Roule: I believe Tehran will remain in the talks, but it will likely use the coming weeks to project defiance and even a willingness to walk away. The developing crisis over Iran’s naval attacks in the Arabian Sea may also postpone engagement. But for Iran, talks are a net positive. In addition to significant sanctions relief, the talks allow Iran – a mid-sized country – to routinely engage the attention of the world’s powers and play these actors against each other. This engagement also brings de facto recognition of the Raisi government, no small thing given his bloody background. The talks allow the Raisi government to argue directly with senior European counterparts that new sanctions for its many non-nuclear crimes would prevent it from returning to the nuclear deal. Last, the talks will give the Raisi government a platform for defiant rhetoric that will unsettle its adversaries and satisfy domestic supporters.
The Cipher Brief:So, what circumstances would compel Iran to return to the deal?
Roule: I can think of two paths that lead to an Iranian return once the new regime has vented defiant rhetoric. First, Tehran would need to believe that its rejection of the deal and malign regional actions had unified the international community to collectively support renewed economic pressure. Second, if Iran’s economy or political dynamic suffers a downturn that Tehran’s leaders perceive as leading to the downfall of the Islamic Republic. Either will need to include face-saving concessions.
The Cipher Brief: How should we look at current unrest in Iran?
Roule: The ongoing unrest shows no sign of being a near-term threat to the regime. The crowd sizes appear manageable and anti-regime violence has so far been minimal. Security forces are relatively well organized and they are unsympathetic to protestors. The main weakness of protest remains that the opposition lacks direction, leadership, and support by labor groups. There appear to be no external or internal power centers capable of challenging the Supreme Leader.
We shouldn’t overlook the fact that many Iranians do support the regime. Despite a historically low turnout and Raisi’s admitted record of blood, eighteen million Iranians voted for him. It has become routine to see videos from Iran in which women argue that they cannot be forced to wear a hijab. But the same videos show other Iranian women (and men) asserting that failure to do so violates Iranian law and culture.
The current unrest did have aspects that likely worry Tehran. Oil workers put down their tools, and sympathy strikes reportedly erupted in major cities, albeit not on a scale that threatened the regime. The grievances of the Iranian people are so reasonable that they are increasingly acknowledged as such by government officials. But conditions in Iran are unlikely to improve. COVID continues to wreak havoc while climate change makes water and electricity shortages more painful. For these reasons, unrest will continue and probably intensify.
Go beyond the headlines with expert perspectives on today’s news with The Cipher Brief’s Daily Open-Source Podcast. Listen here or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Cipher Brief:What do you expect President Raisi to accomplish domestically, regionally, and internationally in his first 100 days in office?
Roule: Domestically, he will take steps to show how he will sustain Iran’s revolutionary spirit during what many believe to be a period of transition to a new generation of leaders. We will see this initially play out in his ministerial selections as part of a broader campaign to staff the bureaucracy with ideologically sound personnel, especially those with a background in the Revolutionary Guard. Security services and the military are very likely to see strong support. He will want to show that he is taking steps to address COVID and the economy. Programs directed at the poor are likely to be a priority, but he will have no sympathy for protestors. I wouldn’t be surprised if he announced an anti-corruption campaign and targeted members of the Rouhani administration for its initial investigations. We will also continue to see efforts to prepare Iran’s oil sector so that Tehran can quickly ramp up oil sales once sanctions end. Last, he is likely to support growing regime control of the internet. A bill calling for such control is currently before the parliament.
The Cipher Brief: What about foreign policy?
Roule: I don’t anticipate many changes in foreign policy. Raisi will mouth support for regional engagement but will maintain a defiant attitude towards the West, animus toward the U.S., support for proxies, and suspicion – but likely not rejection – of the nuclear talks. We need to be clear that he sees any sanctions relief as a transactional issue. Much as in 2015, Tehran will be clear that it will not allow a new deal to transform Iran’s society or its relations with the West.
The Cipher Brief:What are your thoughts on what would constitute an effective U.S. strategy to deter Iran’s regional activities, such as continued attacks on maritime trade, proxy support for attacks on Saudi Arabia, and activities in Yemen and Syria? Can you imagine a scenario when the U.S. might engage militarily?
Roule: Our strategy must involve our international partners. We should avoid anything that makes it appear as if this is a U.S-Iran conflict instead of Iranian actions that threaten multiple countries and their citizens. The question becomes, will the international community join us or stand back while the U.S. takes the hard steps needed to contain Iran. Sanctions certainly deprive Iran of resources it would use for its proxies, but sanctions alone will not end Iran’s belligerence. The
The Cipher Brief:What are Iran’s likely plans in Afghanistan in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal? What worries you the most?
Roule: There is plenty about Afghanistan to worry everyone, but I won’t dwell on the issues that are covered well in The Cipher Brief by others. Iran has enjoyed the security stability that came with our presence. Now they have the Taliban on their border. Qods Force commander Esmail Qaani has considerable experience in Afghanistan. Iran’s security forces will likely engage the Taliban, Afghan governments, and warlords in equal measure to ensure that Iran can exert some influence over each. Iran is likely to transfer some portion of its Afghan proxies in Syria to western Afghanistan to protect Iran’s interests.
One issue that concerns me is the fate of the al-Qaeda cell in Iran. Tehran has enabled an Al-Qaeda presence on its territory for years without any international cost. That presence may well choose to migrate back to Afghanistan to reconstitute its former power center. The international community should hold Iran responsible if this happens. After all of the blood and treasure spent in the war on terror, we cannot tolerate Iran enabling al-Qaeda’s resurgence.
The Cipher Brief:It feels like that would be an incredible regression.Let’s shift to energy issues. Where do energy markets stand in the wake of the OPEC deal? And what do you think are the main drivers?
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Roule: Three baskets of drivers now define energy markets. First, the fundamentals. Here we are watching steady draws on stockpiles, production remains below what the market could absorb, and supplies will be tight for the remainder of the year. U.S. producers appear generally focused on return on equity vice expansion, which will likely mean that we will produce around two million BPD of oil less this year than last year. U.S. rig count is about double what it was a year ago at this time but is growing only slowly. It likely dropped slightly a week ago. Capital investment in the oil industry plummeted in 2020. Shareholders are pressing company leaders to use profits from restored oil prices to invest in green technology. OPEC policy remains conservative in the face of variables including; when Iran and Venezuela will resume production, the question of whether inflation has returned, and the impact of investor speculation.
Second, COVID is here to stay even in the best-case scenarios. The international community has failed to come close to a uniform approach to social distancing, travel, and economic reopening. We tend to look at this through a national perspective, but it may be insightful to look regionally to see how COVID-D shuts down specific industries as it spreads globally. Fresh COVID lockdowns in China have combined with signs of a decline in Chinese manufacturing to restrain prices.
Finally, geopolitical developments have generally had only a temporary impact on price pressures, but I worry about events in the Middle East. Expansion of Iranian attacks in strategic waterways with significant commercial and energy traffic may be more consequential. Insurance costs may increase for an industry with tight profit margins. Worse, attacks against only a few large container ships would disrupt global supply chains. We are moving into a new age when the importance of the Middle East may be as significant in terms of transportation security as it is in terms of energy.
The Cipher Brief: So, let’s put you on the spot. What is your outlook for prices in the coming months?
Roule: Let me give this my best shot. Absent a sudden economic downturn, widespread COVID lockdowns, or conflict in the Middle East, we should see a continuation of the upward price velocity seen over recent months. This trend should sustain prices in the mid $70s and even low $80s. Several factors make upward movement beyond that problematic. First, OPEC leaders would be reluctant to invite the inflationary (and thus political) pressures such a spike would entail. The Saudis will continue to push for market stability which dominates their strategy. Second, India – and possibly China – would draw upon their strategic reserves if prices moved that high. Finally, such a price would draw out producers in the U.S. and OPEC + who would not be able to pass on a chance for a spike in revenue.
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This piece was first published by RUSI in London. The views do not represent those of RUSI.
EXPERT PERSPECTIVE –The international community is coming under increasing pressure to recognise the Taliban and to unfreeze Afghan funds held by the IMF or to risk a humanitarian crisis over the winter and a resurgence of international terrorism.
As Afghanistan heads deeper into winter the desperate need is to avoid a humanitarian crisis. The World Food Programme has launched an appeal to feed up to 23 million people and Médecins sans Frontières have followed suit in the healthcare field. Fortunately, the distribution mechanisms are in place inside Afghanistan; what is needed is for the international community to ensure that UN humanitarian programmes are fully funded. This will require Western capitals to get over the shock of their recent defeat. It goes without saying that hunger and health should not be used as instruments of political leverage.
Meanwhile, it is becoming ever more apparent that the Taliban do not have the skills to administer a country which is far more complex than the Afghanistan of 1996 – when they began their previous and disastrous spell in office. They will need international assistance to stabilise the economy, get people back to work and, in time, continue the gradual infrastructure improvements which have been underway since 2002. China will doubtless be willing to assist in some areas but Beijing has already made clear that it is adopting a cautious, gradualist approach. However, there are emerging indications that the Taliban’s intransigent views are beginning to relax; such as their approval of the polio vaccination scheme and their willingness to work with UN humanitarian agencies.
The Taliban will also need outside help in defeating the threat from the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISK). Already the Taliban are finding it difficult to counter similar asymmetric tactics which they used so successfully against Western forces. This is likely one of the subjects which CIA Director William Burns discussed with the Taliban during his visit on 24 August and where there is a mutual interest.
What can the international community (not just the West) realistically expect from the Taliban, following the militant group’s stunning victory? Maximalist demands will inevitably get short shrift.
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First, the Taliban should form a more inclusive government. According to multiple sources, the Taliban were intending to form such an administration had Ashraf Ghani not fled the country on 15 August. I am sceptical that this was ever their intention but former president Hamid Karzai and former reconciliation chief Abdullah Abdullah may have remained in Kabul on this understanding and Fatima Gailani, a former negotiator, insists this was the Taliban’s intention.
An inclusive government would need to include women and non-Taliban representatives from the Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik communities. It need not comprise the failed politicians and bloodstained warlords of the past, least of all Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Rashid Dostum. It is surely time for a new generation of more technocratic Afghans to become involved in government. Some may be persuaded to return from abroad but they will need assurances for their safety.
Second, the international community should insist on female education at all levels be restored and for women to play a fuller role in society. The Taliban will baulk at this but they only need to look at Pakistan where women play an important role in an avowedly Islamic, if not Islamist, society.
Third, all neighbouring countries, as well as the wider world, want Afghanistan to commit to removing all terrorist bases and terrorists from its soil; not just ISK and Al-Qa’ida but also the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), anti-Iranian and anti-Indian groups, and Central Asian militant movements including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Fourth, the Taliban should commit to allow people to join their families in exile if they wish and also cease the continuing search for and punishment of those Afghans who served the Afghan government and Western allies since 2001.
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In an ideal world there would also be a fifth request: to remove Haqqani network members from the Taliban administration. However, that pass was sold when the US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad engaged with the Haqqanis in Doha – another result of that calamitous dialogue. Furthermore, the current reality is that the Haqqanis control both Kabul and its airport and Sirajuddin Haqqani holds the key position of interior minister.
Instead, the Haqqanis need to be persuaded to prevent Al-Qa’ida regrouping in Afghanistan. Sirajuddin’s father was close to Osama bin Laden and the group retains its Al-Qa’ida connections. Pakistan is already using the Haqqanis to bring the TTP to the negotiating table. It remains to be seen how successful this will be. It is doubtful that the Haqqanis would be willing to take military action against a group from a similar area in the tribal borderlands. However, the Haqqanis could be useful as intermediaries, if not as enforcers.
Meanwhile, the wider Taliban, usually referred to as the ‘Kandaharis’, are increasingly exasperated by the entryist Haqqanis. Although they have worked together, there was never much love lost between the two. The Kandaharis have always distrusted the Haqqanis’ proximity to the Pakistani military. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul-Ghani Baradar, whose willingness to negotiate with the Kabul government in 2008 and 2010 earned him eight years in a Pakistani prison, has been sidelined. There will doubtless be a reckoning
A lasting regret of the US’s careless withdrawal is that Washington did not conclude a broader settlement for Afghanistan involving China, Iran, Russia, India and the Central Asian Republics. From now on it is essential to include all the neighbours in the discussion of recognition and the conditions required. But first the Afghans must be helped to survive the winter.
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