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THE WASHINGTON POST

John Podesta speaks in Washington

By John Podesta

John Podesta was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The more we learn about the Russian plot to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign and elect Donald Trump, and the failure of the FBI to adequately respond, the more shocking it gets. The former acting director of the CIA has called the Russian cyberattack “the political equivalent of 9/11.” Just as after the real 9/11, we need a robust, independent investigation into what went wrong inside the government and how to better protect our country in the future. Read More »

In this Sept. 21, 2008 file photo, Iranian Revolutionary Guard members march during a parade ceremony, marking the 28th anniversary of the onset of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), just outside Tehran, Iran. Iran’s paramilitary Revolution Guard faces a new enemy in the Islamic Republic’s opening economy. That can be seen in a Guard general criticizing a $650-million deal struck with South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries, Friday, Dec. 9, 2016. Analysts say the Guard wants to maintain its hold in Iran’s economy, as well as slow any demand for change in the clerically overseen government it’s sworn to protect.

By Jon Gambrell | AP December 15

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s Revolutionary Guard faces a new enemy: the gradual opening of the country’s economy after the nuclear deal with world powers. Read More »

A Boeing 747 belonging to Iran’s national airline at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran in 2003

By THOMAS ERDBRINK

TEHRAN — Iran and Boeing signed a deal for the sale of 80 airplanes on Sunday, five weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald J. Trump, whose Republican supporters in Congress have tried to block any aircraft sales to Iran. Read More »

The Simons Center is pleased to formally congratulate Dr. Cumrun Vafa and all of the winners of the 2017 Breakthrough Prize In Fundamental Physics: Read More »

By Dominic Evans, Maher Chmaytelli and Patrick Markey | Wed Dec 7, 2016

In the early days of the assault on Islamic State in Mosul, Iran successfully pressed Iraq to change its battle plan and seal off the city, an intervention which has since shaped the tortuous course of the conflict, sources briefed on the plan say. Read More »

JUDY WOODRUFF: The United States and Iran have been at odds for 37 years, a standoff that continues even as President Obama signed on to a deal this past summer that sharply limits Iran’s nuclear development. Read More »

Civilians and armed forces members carry the flag-draped coffins of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohsen Ghajarian, foreground, and five soldiers who were killed in fighting in Syria, during their funeral outside the headquarters of the guard’s ground forces, in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 6, 2016.

Analysts and experts are expressing skepticism after an Iranian official said this week that more than 1,000 soldiers deployed by Iran have been killed since 2012 while aiding the Syrian regime in its civil war. Read More »

Scores of Iraqi male residents are rounded up by the Iraqi army in Gogjali neighborhood, in Mosul, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. Iraqi forces urged them to come out with information of any Islamic State members among them. An Iraqi officer addressed the group, demanding to know the whereabouts of alleged IS militants who opened fire on troops a few days earlier. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
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by:Qassim Abdul-Zahra

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi troops on Thursday drove Islamic State militants from three more neighborhoods in the northern city of Mosul, a commander said, as a bomb south of Baghdad killed at least 21 people, including 10 Iranian pilgrims. Read More »

by:Alex Lockie

(Sailors assigned to the guided-missile destroyer USS Nitze (DDG 94) render assistance to a distressed Iranian vessel.US Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Casey J. Hopkins/Released)
In yet another development in an already eventful deployment, US Navy sailors aboard the USS Nitze rescued three stranded Iranians in the Arabian Gulf on Friday. Read More »

By: Jim Lobe

On the news that Donald Trump has asked Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to be his national security adviser, I decided to look up Flynn’s testimony on Iran before the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa on June 10, 2015. That was just a month beforethe P5+1 and Iran concluded the the Iran nuclear deal, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). What I found was pretty shocking and deserves wide dissemination. I knew that Flynn was pretty much of an Islamophobe, but I didn’t know to what extent he appears also to be an Iranophobe as well. The testimony is 16 pages long, so I will confine this post to selected excerpts. But one really has to read the whole thing to get the full flavor of this man’s state of mind on the subject. Read More »