Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
I speculated last week that, notwithstanding the American public’s rather obvious war wariness, making the public case for military action against Iran wouldn’t be all that difficult given the three decades of antipathy between the United States and the Islamic Republic that started with the Iranian Hostage Crisis. A new poll from The Hill would [...]
The United States is sending a warning to Iran not to play games with the Straits Of Hormuz: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is relying on a secret channel of communication to warn Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a “red line” that would provoke an American response, [...]
Given the increasing tensions between the United States and Iran in the Straits of Hormuz, this is good to see: (CNN) — U.S. sailors from a carrier strike group whose recent presence in the Persian Gulf drew the ire of Iranian military officials have rescued 13 of the Middle Eastern country’s sailors from a hijacked [...]
Philip Hammond addressed the Atlantic Council this morning in advance of a meeting with Leon Panetta.
Bernard Finel argues that those of us arguing against war in Iran are doing it wrong. He’s right.
Russian customs has seized a shipment of Sodium-22 being carried in the luggage of an Iranian passenger bound for Tehran: The Federal Customs Service said in a statement that its agents found 18 pieces of metal at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after a radiation alert went on. It says the gauges showed that radiation levels were [...]
The Christian Science Monitor is out with a story that Iranian engineers are claiming that they were actually able to electronically take control of the RQ-170 drone captured last week: Iran guided the CIA’s “lost” stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according [...]
The Iranian military claims a U.S. drone was shot-down in western Iran, but all the United States is admitting is that plane is missing: A secret U.S. surveillance drone that went missing last week in western Afghanistan appears to have crashed in Iran, in what may be the first case of such an aircraft ending [...]
The British government has reacted pretty quickly to yesterday’s embassy attack in Teheran: The UK is to expel all Iranian diplomats following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced. He said he had ordered the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London. Tuesday’s attack by hundreds of protesters [...]
Well, this sounds familiar: Dozens of hard-line Iranian students stormed the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, bringing down the Union Jack flag and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the anger against Western powers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The mob moved into the diplomatic compound two days after Iran’s parliament approved [...]
Karim Sadjapour writes about a wargaming scenario he recently participated in with a group of former U.S. officials and experts on Israel and Iran to try to play out how an Israeli strike on Iran might go. Sadjapour was on the Iranian team and, as he relates, it didn’t turn out well for anyone: Iran’s [...]
The Secretary of Defense has some words of warning for those advocating military action against Iran.
An attack against Iran’s nuclear weapons research facility won’t be an easy thing.
It’s time for another round of speculation about Iran and its nuclear program.
What’s the logic behind Iran’s alleged plot to commit terrorist attacks inside the United States?
The Justice Department claims to have disrupted a major Iranian-backed terrorist attack in the United States.
It’s General Assembly time again in New York City and, along with the ongoing controversy over the Palestinian statehood bid, that means a return visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahdmedinejad, who never ceases to find something offensive or idiotic to say when he addresses the world body. This year, though, there’s a Presidential election going [...]
Apparently, the Libyan rebels have been receiving aid from the Islamic Republic of Iran: Iran “discreetly” provided humanitarian aid to Libyan rebels before the fall of Tripoli, Jam-e-Jam newspaper quoted Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Sunday as saying. We were in touch with many of the rebel groups in Libya before the fall of [...]
Iraq has become so dependent on Iran for its survival that it is endorsing the brutal tactics of Bashar Assad.
There’s an interesting article from yesterday’s Washington Post about the gap between Iranian elites and the rest of the country: TEHRAN — Gold-flecked ice cream wasn’t part of the picture that Shiite Muslim clerics painted during the Iranian Revolution, when they promised to lift the poor by distributing the country’s vast oil income equally across [...]
The Saudis seem to be sending a very clear signal to Iran, and the world: A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon. Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief [...]
This is hardly surprising news given the close relationship between Syria and the Islamic Republic, but it now seems clear that Iran is providing Bashar Assad’s regime with assistance in the crackdown on anti-government protesters: U.S. officials say Iran is dispatching increasing numbers of trainers and advisers — including members of its elite Quds Force [...]
The Jerusalem Post is passing along a report from the German newspaper Die Welt that Iran is in the process of building rocket launching facilities in Venezuela: BERLIN – The Iranian government is moving forward with the construction of rocket launch bases in Venezuela, the German daily Die Welt wrote in its Thursday edition. Venezuelan [...]
Dodd Harris has already noted the more bizarre aspects of the power struggle between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni, but yesterday that power struggle seemed to turn more serious as it entered the mosques: The unprecedented power struggle between the two most powerful leaders in Iran deepened Friday, spilling out [...]
That’s it, now they’re crossing a line: TEHRAN — Thirty-nine of Iran’s 290 parliamentarians have tabled a motion to ban dogs from public places, as well as private flats, according to media reports on Thursday. Dogs are considered “unclean” by Muslims. However, in recent years, man’s best friend has started to appear in some wealthy [...]
My co-blogger Steven Taylor makes this observation about where Libya finds itself eight years after surrendering ts nuclear weapons research program: It struck me as ironic that just under eight years ago Gaddafi specifically engaged in a course of action clearly intended to forestall US military action against his regime and that, despite that, he [...]
Muammar Gadaffi’s family hired big name entertainers for parties. What with the ongoing mayhem in Libya, that’s coming under scrutiny.
The uprisings in the Arab world have led some to suggest that the Middle East isn’t “ready” to be free. They’re wrong.
Iranians took to the streets of Tehran today to march in solidarity with the people of Egypt, and the police responded with tear gas: PARIS — Hundreds of black-clad riot police officers, some in bullet-proof vests, deployed in key locations in central Tehran on Monday and fired tear gas to thwart an Iranian opposition march [...]
Thirty years after the hostages were freed from captivity in Iran, the United States still hasn’t figured out how to deal with the Islamic Republic.
The Stuxnet virus that has set back the Iranian nuclear weapons program by several years at least appears to have originated as a joint project between the United States and Israel.
Sarah Palin waded into the foreign policy pool today with a piece about Iran, and it was about as empty as most of the other ideas on Iran that we’ve heard over the last six years or so from everyone else.
The diplomatic ramifications of the latest Wikileaks leaks are just starting to emerge and may place some countries in very embarrassing positions.
David Broder offers up some odd ideas on the relationship between a war with Iran and the economy.
It only seems fair to take an entire tweet, lengthy though it may be, into account when reacting.
If it’s September, it must be time for Mahmoud Ahmadinjad to stand up before the United Nations General Assembly and say something completely insane.
According to John Bolton, Israel has a deadline of August 21st to attack Iran’s nuclear program. This is the fourth deadline he’s set in the last three years.
Every new report out of Iran seems to bring us closer to the moment when Israel has decided it’s heard enough. What happens if that day actually happens ?
The Islamic Republic has decided to cancel it’s aid mission to Gaza propaganda stunt: Iran will not send a ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza as it had planned to do on Thursday, according to a report from the official news agency of Iran. The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Hossein Sheikholeslam, secretary-general of the [...]
What could possibly go wrong ? TEHRAN, June 14 (Reuters) – Iran is sending aid ships to blockaded Gaza, state radio said on Monday — a move likely to be considered provocative by Israel which accuses Tehran of arming the Palestinian enclave’s Islamist rulers, Hamas. One ship left port on Sunday and another will depart [...]
Via the BBC: Tight security in Iran on election anniversary. It would appear that the opposition has lost considerable ground in that year: Opposition leaders have called off planned protests, saying they want to avoid the loss of innocent lives. […] The opposition seem to have run out of ideas. Many Iranians are now reduced [...]
In a classic demonstration of the old adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Saudi Arabia is reportedly cooperating to make it easier for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear [...]
Iran enters the fray over Gaza: Iran has warned that it could send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort humanitarian aid convoys seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza – a move that would certainly be challenged by Israel. Any such Iranian involvement, raised today by an aide to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali [...]
Andrew Exum: for the sake of argument, and putting ourselves in the shoes of an Israeli naval commander, let’s assume the most malevolent of motivations for the people participating in the peace flotilla. If I am in charge of doing that for the Israeli Navy, I am going to assume these people are smart and [...]
