Articles

British Plans Envisioned Using Nuclear Weapons as an Option in Iran and Iraq, According to Declassified Documents

Edited by Steve Everly

Washington DC, June 23, 2016 – Recently discovered British documents posted today by the National Security Archive provide a new and revealing account of the CIA’s role in a top-secret plan to ravage the Middle East oil industry. It’s been 67 years since President Harry Truman approved NSC 26/2 to keep the Soviet military from using Middle East petroleum if it invaded the region. This denial policy called for American and British oil companies in the Middle East to disable or destroy oil facilities and equipment, and plug the region’s oil wells. The policy evolved during Eisenhower’s presidency and lingered at least into the Kennedy administration. Read More »

By Steve Everly June 23, 2016

Fearing a Russian invasion, the U.S. and Britain were prepared to ravage the region’s oil industry—and even considered going nuclear.

On a cool summer day in London in 1951, an American CIA officer told three British oil executives about a top-secret U.S. government plan. The goal was to ravage the Middle East oil industry if the region were ever invaded by the Soviet Union. Oil wells would be plugged, equipment and fuel stockpiles destroyed, refineries and pipelines disabled—anything to keep the USSR from getting its hands on valuable oil resources. The CIA called it the “denial policy.” Read More »

Iranians wonder which will do less damage to Obama’s opening.

by:Akbar Ganji

The U.S. presidential election and its outcome will greatly influence the fate of many nations, in particular those in the Middle East. Consequently these nations, their political leaders and their people are closely following developments here in the United States. Read More »

Swedish Woman Runs Solo Across Iran

Ultra-runner Kristina Paltén ran 1,144 miles across Iran by herself in an epic quest for understanding.

“I have just started, and I am really f–ing scared,” Kristina Paltén says directly into the camera in Swedish. Read More »

By: David Axe

On April 9, 1972, Iraq and the Soviet Union signed an historic agreement. The USSR committed to arming the Arab republic with the latest weaponry. In return for sending Baghdad guns, tanks and jet fighters, Moscow got just one thing — influence … in a region that held most of the world’s accessible oil. Read More »

by:Farnaz Alimehri

Iran’s vice president and nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehipaid a visit last month to the Czech Republic, where he met with several officials including Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek. The purpose of the trip was to develop a bilateral nuclear cooperation between Iran and the Czech Republic, specifically aimed at bolstering Iran’s civilian nuclear program and the Iranian Nuclear Regulatory Authority. Read More »

By withdrawing from govern­ment, Gemayel is trying to restore party to past glories from be­fore civil war when it occupied key place in Christian con­sciousness.

The Arab Weekly
Mohamad Kawas

Beirut – The leader of Lebanon’s Ka­taeb Party, Sami Gemayel, recently announced that Labour Minister Sejaan Qazzi and Economy Min­ister Alain Hakim would resign from the Tammam Salam government. Qazzi subsequently said he would not fulfil these directives and was suspended by the Kataeb Party. Read More »

By Jenna Lifhits

Despite State Department investment campaign on behalf of Islamic Republic.

A group of think tank scholars, congressmen, and intelligence officials is urging an intergovernmental financial watchdog to keep Iran on its so-called blacklist, despite Obama administration officials’ vocal encouragement of trade and investment in the Islamic Republic. Read More »

Reuters

An international group that monitors money laundering worldwide is expected to decide this week to keep Iran on its blacklist of high-risk countries despite aggressive lobbying by Tehran to come off the list to help it access the global financial system, Western officials said. Read More »