2016 will be a year when Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad “will lock in significant political and military gains” due to the U.S.’s betrayal of anti-Assad rebels, Emile Hokayem, a Senior Fellow for Middle East Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote Friday in Foreign Policy. Rebels in western Syria made significant advances last year...

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The Obama administration’s Middle East policy effectively serves as “legitimization of Iranian spheres of influence throughout the region, especially in Iraq and Syria,” Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote in an analysis for Tablet on Thursday. Badran observed that President Barack Obama has stated that he...

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The head of Iran’s armed forces said that Tehran does “not pay attention” to United Nations resolutions banning its development of ballistic missiles, and indicated that its missile program is a threat against Iran’s enemies, including Israel, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency. “Iran’s missile capability and its missile program will become stronger,”...

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The United States’ failure to ground a sanctioned Iranian airline that provides logistical support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Syria underscores a severe loss of American credibility, which the Obama administration should immediately act to restore by penalizing companies and financial institutions that allow the airline to operate, Emanuele Ottolenghi, senior fellow at the Foundation for...

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Despite declarations condemning the atrocities committed by the Iran-backed regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama administration have been “enabling…war crimes” by “offering nothing but rhetoric,” a Washington Post editorial charged on Wednesday. The editorial noted that the U.S. and Russia managed to pass United Nations...

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Iran announced that it now has access to more than $100 billion in previously frozen assets due to sanctions relief granted by the nuclear deal, The Washington Post reported on Monday. The sum claimed by Tehran is nearly twice the estimate given last month by Secretary of State John Kerry, who said that...

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A United States District Court judge challenged the government’s decision to dismiss charges against an Iranian man accused of sanctions violations, Reuters reported on Monday. The U.S. government moved to dismiss charges against Alireza Moazami Goudarzi, who allegedly attempted to buy prohibited military equipment on behalf of Iran, as part of a deal that led...

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The commander of Iran’s elite extraterritorial navy proclaimed in a session at the Iranian parliament Monday that his forces “extracted a lot of information from the confiscated cell phones and laptops” from U.S. Navy sailors it detained last month. Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) navy, said that...

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei awarded medals to five Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval commanders for seizing ten American sailors earlier this month, Reuters reported on Sunday. Khamenei presented the Fath or Victory medals to the head of the IRGC Navy, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, and four other...

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Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh proclaimed in his weekly sermon on Friday that his terror organization was preparing for future conflicts with Israel, as analysts continue to note the group’s buildup of infrastructure in anticipation of a possible war. In his speech, which eulogized seven terrorists who died when a tunnel...

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