Middle East
Publisher: Reuters
31 Dec 2014
U.S. calls for release of Americans in Iran, denies swap deal
The United States called on Tuesday for the release of U.S. citizens held in Iran, but denied a report that Washington had proposed a prisoner exchange for a former U.S. Marine. A lawyer for Amir Hekmati, an Iranian-American former Marine jailed in Tehran, was quoted in a report on Tuesday on Iran's semi-official Tasnim News Agency as saying that the United States had sought his release through a prisoner swap.
Publisher: The Guardian
29 Dec 2014
Iran supreme leader uses Twitter to blast US and says #BlackLivesMatter
Publisher: Financial Post
28 Dec 2014
Nevermind U.S. shale, Saudi Arabia’s oil power play targets Iran’s economy
All politics are local, except for oil politics. The Russians think these low oil prices are an American-Saudi conspiracy. American commentators believe that the Saudis have driven down prices to punish North Dakota s shale oil revolution and drive its high-cost producers out of the game. In Canada, the paranoia in Calgary is that the Saudis and other Gulf oil producers want to drive the oil sands out of business.
Publisher: New Eastern Outlook
23 Dec 2014
Iran and Modern Cyber Warfare
Iran has started developing a new cybersecurity strategy, which will make cyber-operations top priority for both the army and national intelligence agencies. According to Western analysts, should the conflict between Iran and the West turn from bad to worse, Tehran could use cyber-attacks to inflict substantial damage on critical infrastructure in the United States and its allies, including power plants and financial networks.
Publisher: The Guardian
11 Nov 2014
Stakes are high as US plays the oil card against Iran and Russia
Obama administration wants Tehran to come to heel over its nuclear programme. It wants Vladimir Putin to back off in eastern Ukraine. But after recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House has no desire to put American boots on the ground. Instead, with the help of its Saudi ally, Washington is trying to drive down the oil price by flooding an already weak market with crude. As the Russians and the Iranians are heavily dependent on oil exports, the assumption is that they will become easier to deal with.
Publisher: NYTimes
28 Oct 2014
Economic Pain Looms Large for Iranians in Nuclear Negotiations
With oil prices projected to fall even further, the oil-dependent government of Iran faces growing pressure to settle the nuclear standoff. "This is a new wild card, and we don't know how it will play out," one of the senior Western negotiators said the other day, as officials mapped out a strategy that they hope can achieve a deal in less than a month's time.
Iran Proposes an Axis Against Islamic State to Iraq as an Alternative to the U.S. Coalition
Al-Zaman [The Times of Baghdad] reports that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has proposed to visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi an anti-ISIL axis including Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq that would be led by Iran, as an alternative to the US-led coalition proposed by President Barack Obama. In essence, this is the same kind of support Iran offers Bashar al-Assad in Syria against ISIL and al-Qaeda affiliates there (as well as against the Free Syrian Army)
Publisher: NYTimes
19 Oct 2014
Obama Sees an Iran Deal That Could Avoid Congress
Even while negotiators argue over the number of centrifuges Iran would be allowed to spin and where inspectors could roam, the Iranians have signaled that they would accept, at least temporarily, a suspension of the stringent sanctions that have drastically cut their oil revenues and terminated their banking relationships with the West, according to American and Iranian officials. The Treasury Department, in a detailed study it declined to make public, has concluded Mr. Obama has the authority to suspend the vast majority of those sanctions without seeking a vote by Congress, officials say.
Publisher: Haaretz
16 Oct 2014
U.S. proposes Iran keep nuclear infrastructure but reduce ability to make bomb
Iran is considering a U.S. proposal at nuclear talks that would allow it to keep more of its nuclear infrastructure intact while still reducing its ability to make an atomic bomb, two diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday. At issue is Iran's uranium enrichment program, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of nuclear arms. Tehran insists the program is only for future energy needs.
Publisher: The Guardian
14 Oct 2014
Qassem Suleimani photo makeover reveals Iran’s new publicity strategy
Professional pictures of the Quds commander Suleimani are part of Iranian promotion of its support of Iraq forces against Isis. Suleimani and the Iraqi militias he commands have played a key role in halting Isis. But neither he nor any other Iranian official has been invited to Tuesday's strategy meeting in Washington between the US president, Barack Obama, and military chiefs from 20 western and Arab countries, which aimed to draw up a plan to defeat the militants. The crisis in Iraq may have created a temporary alignment between the US and Iran, bitter enemies for the last 35 years, but they remain firmly at odds over Syria, where Tehran s loyal support has been crucial in bolstering Bashar al-Assad.
Publisher: Aljazeera
6 Oct 2014
Iran releases arrested journalist on bail
Tehran has released on bail an Iranian journalist who was arrested more than two months ago, while her husband, a fellow reporter who was arrested at the same, remains in jail. Yeganeh Salehi, a foreign correspondent for the UAE's English-language newspaper the National, and Jason Rezaian, the Iran correspondent for the Washington Times newspaper, were arrested on July 22. On Monday, both newspapers quoted Salehi's brother-in-law as saying that she was freed on bail late last week.
Publisher: The Washington Post
15 Sep 2014
Iran won’t team with U.S. against Islamic State
Publisher: Huffington Post
7 Sep 2014
Henry Kissinger: Iran ‘A Bigger Problem Than ISIS’
In an interview with NPR that was released on Saturday, Kissinger explained that because Iran has a stronger footing in the Middle East, it has a greater opportunity to create an empire. "The borders of the settlement of 1919-'20 are essentially collapsing," he said. "That gives Iran a very powerful level from a strategic point of view.
Publisher: BBC
30 Aug 2014
Iran President Rouhani hits out at US sanctions
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has criticised the US for new sanctions, saying they are "not compatible" with the spirit of current negotiations. Speaking on Iranian TV, he said Iran was still committed to continuing nuclear talks with the US and five other international powers. New sanctions on 25 firms and individuals were announced in Washington on Friday.
Publisher: The Guardian
29 Aug 2014
Iranian film director attacks US sanctions
Iranian director Rakhshan Bani-E'temad has hit out at the impact of US economic sanctions while in Venice to promote a new film that documents social ills in her country. Bani-E temad said the hard-hitting competition entry, titled Ghesseha (Tales), was a realistic portrayal of life on the skids in an Iran permeated with prostitution, drug abuse, bureaucracy and single motherhood. "Our children who are sick with diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis are paying the direct consequences of the embargo because they cannot get the medicines they need," Bani-E'temad said
Publisher: The Guardian
29 Aug 2014
Persian paranoia: America’s fear of Iranian cyber power
When Israel stepped up Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in July, a crew of hackers going under the name of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters readied their attack tools to show support for their Palestinian brothers. They attempted to flood a core piece of Israel s internet infrastructure, the Domain Name System that acts as the web s phone book for the country. They also tried to take down websites for the national stock exchange and Mossad, the intelligence and special operations body. Months of research into Iranian networks uncovered at least 16,000 systems controlled by Iran outside of its borders.
Publisher: The Guardian
18 Jul 2014
Iran nuclear talks gaps remain as deadline approaches
Nuclear negotiations with Iran in Vienna stalled in recent weeks following disagreements over limits on Iran's enrichment capacity and how long those limits should last. All sides at the talks are prepared to extend them beyond Sunday's deadline, but an extension faces significant opposition in the US Congress.
Publisher: The Guardian
22 Jun 2014
Iran opposes US intervention in Iraq, says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday he is against US intervention in neighboring Iraq, where Islamic extremists and Sunni militants opposed to Tehran have seized a number of towns and cities, the official IRNA news agency reported. "We strongly oppose the intervention of the US and others in the domestic affairs of Iraq," Khamenei was quoted as saying, in his first reaction to the crisis.
Publisher: Al Jazeera
7 May 2014
Iran commander says fleet can destroy U.S. warship in 50 seconds
Iran has developed the capacity to destroy a U.S. warship on less than a minute s notice, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said Tuesday in comments that were met with skepticism by military experts in the West. In the latest threat that Iran s hardline military forces have levied at U.S. presence in the region, Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi told semi-official Fars news agency that his forces have been building replicas of U.S. frigates and aircraft carriers for years in order to practice blowing them up.
Publisher: Blacklisted News
28 Apr 2014
US and Gulf states plan missile defence system to counter Iran
A senior US official on Sunday signalled optimism about a possible resolution of the Iranian nuclear dispute, but said Washington remained concerned that Iran's ballistic missiles threatened Gulf Arab states. Frank Rose, US deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defence policy, said Washington was "acutely" aware of Gulf Arab states' anxieties about Iran and wanted to help them launch a Gulf-wide co-ordinated missile defence capability.
Publisher: Reuters
15 Apr 2014
Israel Says Kerry Remarks on Iran Nuclear Threshold ‘Not Acceptable’
Israel described as "unacceptable" on Monday remarks by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting cautious openness to negotiating a nuclear deal that would keep Iran six to 12 months away from bomb-making capability. "In the past, and also recently, what we heard from the Americans, including publicly, and from the Europeans and even from the Russians, was that Iran must be distanced years - not months but years - from nuclear weaponry," said Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli cabinet minister in charge of nuclear affairs.
Publisher: NYTimes
19 Feb 2014
Former Marine in Tehran Jail Retains a Top Iranian Lawyer
Amir Hekmati, a former Marine incarcerated in Iran on spying charges, has retained a prominent Iranian lawyer to represent him in a new effort to gain his release after nearly two and a half years in Tehran s Evin Prison, Mr. Hekmati s family reported on Tuesday. The lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, is well known in Iran as one of the legal representatives for the family of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and ideological pragmatist who remains an influential force in Iranian politics.
Publisher: The Guardian
3 Feb 2014
Hillary Clinton calls on Senate not to impose more sanctions on Iran
Publisher: NYTimes
3 Feb 2014
Kerry and Iran Minister Confer on Nuclear Issue
Iran s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, met for an hour on Sunday with Secretary of State John Kerry, another sign of serious efforts to solve the crisis around Iran s nuclear program. The two met on the margins of the Munich Security Conference here, and Mr. Zarif later said on a public panel that Iran "will go to those negotiations with the political will and good faith to reach an agreement."
Publisher: NYTimes
25 Jan 2014
U.S. and Iran Offer Clashing Accounts of the Civil War in Syria
"Iran has I.R.G.C. personnel on the ground in Syria conducting military affairs," Mr. Kerry said, using the abbreviation for Iran s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Mr. Kerry also said that Iran was the main supporter of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, which he asserted was "the principal difference in the fighting that has taken place on the ground in Syria." - But the Iranian president offered an assessment that differed so radically it was difficult to imagine that he was talking about the same country. Echoing arguments used by Mr. Assad, Mr. Rouhani suggested that terrorism, not power-sharing with the opposition, was the main issue.
Publisher: NYTimes
23 Jan 2014
New Push Is Made to Free an American While Iran Is at the Negotiating Table
Advocates for a former Marine imprisoned in Tehran more than two years ago are seeking to use a diplomatic window created by the temporary nuclear agreement with Iran to gain his release. In a letter to President Obama released on Wednesday, four top former American defense and security officials urged "immediate action" to expedite the release of the Marine, Amir Hekmati, who has been held in Evin Prison with no publicly disclosed charges against him.
Publisher: NYTimes
21 Jan 2014
U.S. Tells U.N. to Withdraw Iran Invitation to Syria Talks
Publisher: BBC
20 Jan 2014
UN invites Iran to Syria peace talks
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has invited Iran to take part in preliminary Syrian peace talks this week in Switzerland, an offer Tehran has accepted. Mr Ban said he had received assurances that Iran would play a positive role in securing a transitional government. But Syria's main opposition group said it would withdraw from the talks unless Mr Ban retracted the offer to Iran.
Publisher: The Hill
12 Jan 2014