The Wall Street Journal revealed late last week that Iran has been hacking U.S. Navy computers in recent weeks. The allegations, coming as the Obama administration ramps up talks with Iran over its nuclear program, show the depth and complexity of long-standing tensions between Washington and Tehran. The U.S. officials said...

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CNN struggled today to address accusations that it had mistranslated an interview between the station’s Christiane Amanpour and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. Two key passages of the interview – condemning the “Holocaust” and declaring that “whatever criminality they [the Nazis] committed against the Jews, we condemn” – were cited as...

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Newly inaugurated Iranian president Hassan Rouhani last night refused to answer a direct question from NBC journalist Ann Curry regarding his stance – agree or disagree – on statements made by his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioning the historical reality of the Holocaust. Rouhani answered “I’m not a historian, I’m a politician.” The...

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Video footage appearing to show members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operating on the ground in Syria – training and coordinating with Syrian government troops – have renewed questions regarding the extent to which the Islamic republic is directly involved in fighting the Syrian conflict. Tehran has admitted to training Shiite...

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told NBC yesterday that Tehran has “never pursued or sought a nuclear bomb” and declared that that he has been given “complete authority” by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to negotiate a nuclear deal with the West. Some analysts expressed skepticism regarding these claims. The Washington Post‘s Max Fisher, who described a...

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Iranian media today widely reported – Tehran Times, PressTV, Fars – that what it calls its 27th fleet had docked at Port Sudan along the Red Sea. The fleet includes the helicopter carrier Khark (also spelled Kharg) and frigate Sabalan – both British-built – and had previously visited China. The...

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Russian media outlets are reporting that the country’s president Vladimir Putin has authorized an $800 million sale of advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Tehran, potentially setting up a scenario in which Iranian airspace would be denied to Israeli aircraft conducting a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Analysts fear that the introduction of the...

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday made statements defending Tehran’s nuclear rights, deploying rhetoric that AFP described as “echoing his hardline predecessor” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The comments come ahead of meeting later this month between his Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on restarting negotiations on the...

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The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly report on Iran was released today [PDF], containing what the U.S.-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) described as “a mixed bag of developments.” On one hand, Iran has fallen short of its stated goal to develop 55 fuel assemblies for its...

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Iran yesterday threatened that Western action against Syria would escalate into a regional war, pointedly warning of “perilous consequences” in the aftermath of harsh statements from the State Department and White House accusing the Bashar al-Assad regime of crossing Washington’s long-standing “red line” against the use of chemical weapons. Iranian foreign ministry...

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