The United Nations has been declining to publish a detailed report – one which has already been approved by the U.N. Security Council sanctions committee – detailing the degree to which Iran has been able to dodge existing sanctions. Somebody somewhere wanted the report to see the light of day,...
Continue Reading >>
A G8 meeting today between President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the Syrian conflict ended without apparent progress. Reuters conveys the mood awkward: Both leaders looked tense and uncomfortable as they addressed reporters after about two hours of talks, with Putin staring mostly at the floor as he...
Continue Reading >>
Earlier today the Iranian government certified that Hassan Rouhani – a cleric historically aligned with the so-called “conservative pragmatist” camp of President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani – will be Iran’s next president. Rouhani is set to take office on August 3, and will replace incumbent Iranian and long-time Rafsanjani rival Mahmoud...
Continue Reading >>
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey slammed Iran yesterday as “a threat to U.S. national security,” emphasizing that the Islamic republic is “certainly preserving and building on [its] options” for creating a nuclear weapon. “Iran is a threat to US national security in many ways, not simply...
Continue Reading >>
Hamas officials are scrambling to shore up ties with Iran, which have been strained by the role that Iran and its Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah have been playing in bolstering the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria: “I cannot say the relationship with Iran was severed, but it was affected,” Salah...
Continue Reading >>
Two candidates in Iran’s upcoming June 14th election have dropped out of the race. The field is now down to six candidates, all of them hard-liners closely linked to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Former parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel and Mohammad Reza Aref will no longer contend to replace Mahmoud...
Continue Reading >>
Iranian state media on Sunday celebrated critical advances in bringing the country’s plutonium reactor online. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was on hand as workers at the country’s Arak heavy water facility installed containers on the plant’s reactor: Workers installed two containers on the reactor at the Arak heavy water facility in...
Continue Reading >>
Reports this week of progress at Iran’s Arak heavy water facility have raised concerns from U.S. officials that Iranian scientists are developing a second pathway for acquiring nuclear weapons. The regime already has an extensive network of facilities for enriching uranium, and has been systematically locking in critical infrastructure that it...
Continue Reading >>
The funeral of a senior Iranian cleric on Tuesday triggered the country’s largest anti-government demonstration in years. Tens of thousands of Iranians marched against the Iranian leadership, chanted anti-regime slogans, and rallied in support of jailed opposition members: The protesters chanted slogans against the government and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali...
Continue Reading >>
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei this week ordered that the country’s next president not make any concessions to the West. None: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Tuesday that the country’s next president should avoid making “concessions” to the west, saying this would not diffuse tensions over Tehran’s nuclear drive…...
Continue Reading >>
