Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which answers directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stands to be the main beneficiary of economic agreements recently signed between Tehran and Damascus, Reuters reported Wednesday. Syrian Prime Minister Emad Khamis signed five memorandums of understandings on a visit last week to Iran, including phosphate mining...

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A Year of Iranian Lawlessness Last January, then-President Barack Obama announced the implementation of the nuclear deal with Iran, crediting it to “strong American diplomacy” and assuring that “the region, the United States, and the world will be more secure.” Yet the events of the past year have raised questions about...

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A successful conviction in the ongoing trial of a suspected Hezbollah operative in Peru could help authorities “unravel the network of operatives and supporters that Hezbollah has erected throughout the country,” an expert on international terrorism wrote in Foreign Affairs on Wednesday. Mohammad Hamdar was detained in Lima in the fall of 2014 and tested positive...

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Iranian authorities are exposing their “utterly brutal sense of justice” by continuing to carry out “cruel and inhuman” corporal punishments including floggings, amputations, and forced blinding, Amnesty International charged on Wednesday. Hundreds of prisoners are flogged in Iran each year, sometimes in public, Amnesty noted. In the latest flogging case on January 5,...

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The strike last Friday on a military airport near Damascus was likely the latest salvo in Israel’s attempt to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining highly-accurate Iranian surface-to-surface missiles, Ynet military analyst Ron Ben Yishai wrote Tuesday. The targeted airport is a known drop-off point for missiles delivered from Iran by cargo planes,...

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A commander of Houthi rebels in Yemen admitted that Iran and its proxy group Hezbollah are deeply involved in training his militia, Al Arabiya reported Sunday. Abu Mohammed, who oversaw rocket attacks in Yemen’s al-Nihm district, confessed to Iran’s involvement after surrendering, according to Al Arabiya. It wasn’t clear if he was...

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The Pragmatic Murderer Former Iranian president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died on Sunday at the age of 82. A New York Times editorial published after his death praised him and called him a “pragmatist.” This is an odd description of someone who has been implicated in planning terror attacks on foreign soil while he...

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Having effectively taken over the Lebanese cabinet in late December, the terrorist group Hezbollah appears to be on its way to completely controlling the country’s political arena, David Daoud, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in Newsweek on Thursday “Hezbollah is seizing the state’s institutions one...

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A deal to provide Iran with stockpiles of natural uranium that “significantly exceed” its needs raises concerns about the nature of Tehran’s nuclear program, Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote in a policy brief for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Tuesday....

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The “worst part” of President Barack Obama’s legacy in the Middle East will be the hundreds of thousands who have died in Syria’s civil war as a result of his disengagement from the region, former Israeli defense and foreign minister Moshe Arens wrote in Haaretz on Tuesday. Obama’s failure to back up...

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