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BY BOZORGMEHR SHARAFEDIN NOURI

Iran’s security hawks have begun sniping at their country’s historic nuclear deal, emboldened a day after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described some of the world powers that signed it as “untrustworthy”.

Khamenei’s remark will be understood by Iranians to refer largely to the United States and Britain, the “Great and Little Satans” long reviled by Iran’s revolutionary theocracy for their support of the Shah, overthrown in 1979.
The comment carries weight, because the conservative cleric is the ultimate arbiter of high state policy under Iran’s unwieldy dual system of clerical and republican rule.

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By: Graeme Wood

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

WHAT IS THE ISLAMIC STATE?
Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

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Iranians dance in the streets and chant praises to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, after negotiators reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.

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Produced by Beatriz Beiras

(Zibakalam interview follows 2:45 minutes)

Deep concerns about Iran’s potential nuclear ambitions began to rumble through western capitals in 2002. Satellite photos were made public of Natanz and Arak — secret till then. One was a centrifuge uranium enrichment site and the other a heavy water production plant linked to significant plutonium output. The White House said it feared an “across-the-board pursuit of weapons of mass destruction” by Iran. But uranium enrichment could be for civil use too.

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By: Lyse Doucet

As hard as it is, nobody wants to be the first to walk away from the best hope in many years to secure a long-term deal with Iran on its nuclear programme.
A readiness to call it quits is still a tactic – and a genuine threat – in the negotiators’ toolbox.

But, after a year-and-a-half of intensive negotiations, as well as significant progress, the Iran deal is now seen, by many, as “too big to fail”.
“We’ve come so far that to just drop all this work…” sighed one negotiator whose voice trailed off as he admitted he had not left Vienna’s luxurious Palais Coburg hotel for weeks aside from occasional one-day dashes to his capital.
Monday is now a new deadline after a third extension in two weeks. Exhausted negotiators, now talking around the clock, struggle to strike a balance between brushing off another missed mark in the calendar, while still insisting this process is not open-ended.

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By: Javad Zarif

Forget about coercing Iran; the country wants to co-operate against terrorism writes Javad Zarif

We have come a long way over the past 21 months of negotiations over my country’s nuclear energy programme. A very long way. Never have Iran and its counterparts been this close to a final accord. But success is far from assured. All that is clear about what will happen next is that things will not go back to the way they were.

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by Akbar Ganji

The likely nuclear agreement between Iran and P5+1 – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany – is opposed by many. The reasons for the opposition to the agreement vary, depending on who or which country opposes it, but the ultimate goal is the same: scuttling the agreement. The hawks in Iran and the United States oppose the agreement, as do Israel, and Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies. The opposition to the agreement is expressed in different ways. Some demonize Iran, and others make outlandish claims about the “true” intentions and ambitions of the Islamic Republic.
The nuclear agreement will lead to the gradual lifting of the “most crippling economic sanctions in history” against Iran. As was discussed elsewhere (here, here, and here), sanctions represent severe collective punishment of the Iranian people and violation of their fundamental human rights. Iran’s hardliners enriched themselves as a result of the sanctions, amassing tens of billions of dollar in illicit wealth. Thus, naturally, they oppose the nuclear agreement, but hide behind the claim that the agreement will represent “treason” against Iran, and will ruin the country’s achievements and political independence.

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BEIRUT — The dramatic arrival of Da’ish (ISIS) on the stage of Iraq has shocked many in the West. Many have been perplexed — and horrified — by its violence and its evident magnetism for Sunni youth. But more than this, they find Saudi Arabia’s ambivalence in the face of this manifestation both troubling and inexplicable, wondering, “Don’t the Saudis understand that ISIS threatens them, too?”

It appears — even now — that Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite is divided. Some applaud that ISIS is fighting Iranian Shiite “fire” with Sunni “fire”; that a new Sunni state is taking shape at the very heart of what they regard as a historical Sunni patrimony; and they are drawn by Da’ish’s strict Salafist ideology.
Other Saudis are more fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (Disclaimer: this Ikhwan has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan — please note, all further references hereafter are to the Wahhabist Ikhwan, and not to the Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwan), but which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s.
Many Saudis are deeply disturbed by the radical doctrines of Da’ish (ISIS) — and are beginning to question some aspects of Saudi Arabia’s direction and discourse.

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By: Richard Nephew 2 July 2015

For one, oil money ain’t what it used to be. And second, Tehran has bigger problems to deal with at home.

As negotiators close in on a nuclear deal with Iran, there’s been a corresponding uptick in ominous expectations about how Tehran could use the potential rush of funds from sanctions relief to prey on its weak neighbors and secure regional hegemony. U.S. lawmakers like Sen. Mark Kirk(R-Ill.) and lobbying outfits like the Foundation for Defense of Democraciesargue that once the sanctions are gone, Iran will stop at nothing to support groups like Hezbollah or Hamas, as it has in recent decades.

These fears are wildly overblown. Iran’s domestic economic needs are real, as is Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s imperative to deliver on the promises that got him elected and proceed with the talks. To ensure the stability of their government, Iran’s leaders must tend to the problems at home and make the investments necessary to sustain their future. Supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other regional actors is an important, but secondary, objective.

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Akbar Ganji

The many problems that Muslim masses and Islamic countries have been grappling with, coupled with the terrorism perpetrated by radical Sunni Muslims, have given rise to the idea that Islam as a religion cannot be reformed, and that Islam’s basic tenet is problematic. Islamophobia is so prevalent that even Patricia Crone, a Professor at Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and Michael Cook, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, end their book, Hagarism, the Making of the Islamic World, with the following:

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