Tag Archives: Hottest Articles

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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There are growing indications that the Obama administration will sign a nuclear agreement with Iran that will allow Tehran to become a nuclear-threshold state. It seems the only issue being contested at present is the extent of the cosmetic and temporary concessions the Iranians will grant so that Iran does not fully emerge as a nuclear weapons state until after the expiration of the Obama presidency. The disarming body language and genuine warmth that characterizes the public interaction between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iran’s Minster of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif seems to point in that direction, belying the fact that these two nations have not had diplomatic relations for 35 years because the government of one of those states ordered its armed thugs to attack and seize the embassy of the other nation, in the most flagrant violation of international law, holding its diplomats hostage for 444 days.

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Tehran (AFP) – An influential Iranian general who has reportedly been near the front line against the Islamic State group was quoted Thursday saying the jihadists are “nearing the end of their lives”.
General Qassem Suleimani, the once rarely seen commander of the powerful Quds Force, has become the public face of Iran’s support for the Iraqi and Syrian governments against jihadists.

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LONDON — The most dramatic moment of the 1979 Iranian revolution was Black Friday. Within a few days, the Shah was shaken by two subsequent mass demonstrations against his regime and, in order to prevent a third one, declared martial law in the early morning hours of September 8, 1978.

Like most Iranians, at the time I was sleeping on the roof of my house in order to escape the heat of summer. I was exhausted from walking for nearly 14 hours in a demonstration the day before, and from having confronted soldiers and tear gas. But I heard the military music from my father’s radio in the yard. A speaker with a strong voice — one which aimed to instill deep fear into the hearts of his listeners — read a statement declaring a curfew, in which the gathering of more than three people became illegal with severe consequences.

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Iran is full of hidden spots waiting to be discovered. Picture: mehrab1131. Source: Flickr

IT MIGHT not be on everyone’s travel radar, but Iran has a well-worn tourist circuit, encompassing attractions in the ancient cities of Shiraz and Isfahan.
For those wanting to get off the beaten path, the country has a wealth of lesser-known destinations that rival the stunning beauty and historical significance of their more famous counterparts.

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After decades of messianic fervour, Iran is becoming a more mature and modern country, says Oliver August
Nov 1st 2014

FROM THE MOUNTAINS of the Caucasus to the waters of the Indian Ocean, Iranians are watching intently as their government haggles with foreign powers over trade sanctions imposed to restrain its nuclear programme. Pointing to a corner of his office, the owner of a struggling cannery says: “See that television set? I watch it hour by hour, hoping for news that sanctions will be lifted.”

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By Steve LeVine

Hopeful officials in the Obama administration are circulating (paywall) a description of a potential nuclear deal with Iran, suggesting a chance of success after 11 years of talks in one form or another. To follow what happens next, it’s necessary to understand one basic fact—the calendar favors the Western side, and seriously disadvantages Iran.

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In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy, a top Iranian official says that Khomeini personally stopped him from building Iran’s WMD program.
By Gareth Porter

The nuclear negotiations between six world powers and Iran, which are now nearing their November deadline, remain deadlocked over U.S. demands that Iran dismantle the bulk of its capacity to enrich uranium. The demand is based on the suspicion that Iran has worked secretly to develop nuclear weapons in the past and can’t be trusted not to do so again.

Iran argues that it has rejected nuclear weapons as incompatible with Islam and cites a fatwa of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as proof. American and European officials remain skeptical, however, that the issue is really governed by Shiite Islamic principles. They have relied instead on murky intelligence that has never been confirmed about an alleged covert Iranian nuclear weapons program.

But the key to understanding Iran’s policy toward nuclear weapons lies in a historical episode during its eight-year war with Iraq. The story, told in full for the first time here, explains why Iran never retaliated against Iraq’s chemical weapons attacks on Iranian troops and civilians, which killed 20,000 Iranians and severely injured 100,000 more. And it strongly suggests that the Iranian leadership’s aversion to developing chemical and nuclear weapons is deep-rooted and sincere.

A few Iranian sources have previously pointed to a fatwa by the Islamic Republic’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, prohibiting chemical weapons as the explanation for why Iran did not deploy these weapons during the war with Iraq. But no details have ever been made public on when and how Khomeini issued such a fatwa, so it has been ignored for decades.

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Shafaq News / Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Kurdistan Region’s President , Massoud Barzani announced that the so-called successor of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

“ISIS” organization , terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi arrived to city Mosul, the center of Nineveh province to escape the violent aerial bombardment on Raqqa Syrian city, pointing to the anonymity of his hiding place until now.

A statement posted on the party’s website, followed by “Shafaq News”, said that “after the international coalition began bombing the Syrian cities, in which ISIS elements shelter it in , Baghdadi is now moving between Syria and Iraq, noting that the air strikes targeted him a few weeks ago on his way to Anbar from Syria .

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Written by Felice Friedson
Published Monday, September 29, 2014

The sister of a leading Iranian nuclear physicist widely believed to have been assassinated by Israel as part of an effort to derail the Islamic Republic’s drive to create nuclear weapons says her brother was murdered by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRI) because he wouldn’t cooperate with the effort to divert nuclear activities from peaceful purposes.

When Iranian scientist Dr. Ardeshir Hosseinpour was killed in February 2007, the cause of death was reported to be “gassing” and most presumed the act was carried out by Israel. That belief stood, largely because of Iranian accusations to that effect; and because of Israeli policy to neither confirm nor deny such acts. But now, seven years later, Mahboobeh Hosseinpour has come forward with the claim that the IRI was behind her brother’s death because of his refusal to be involved in Iran’s nuclear enrichment program whose use was for atomic purposes.

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