Free Republic

The West is "disappointed" over Iran's failure to respond positively to a UN-brokered nuclear deal, diplomats said in a statement Friday following a meeting of the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany. However, no new sanctions were discussed during the meeting, according to an EU source. "We urge Iran to reconsider the opportunity offered by this agreement ... and to engage seriously with us in dialogue and negotiations," the statement said, noting that Teheran had not responded positively to the proposal of the International Atomic Energy Agency. An EU official said there was no mention of imposing further...

DISGUSTING: Despite legislation passed by Congress to make it possible to sue foreign governments that sponsor terrorism, in a filing in federal court, the Justice Department is arguing that giving the money to the victims "can have significant, detrimental impact on our foreign relations, as well as the reciprocal treatment of the United States and its extensive overseas property holdings."

Departing United Nations Nuke Watchdog, IAEA director Dr. Mohammed El-Baradei is just a hack for the Iranian Nuke program: Last year the Wall Street Journal described him this way: The IAEA director seems intent on undercutting Security Council diplomacy. Just weeks after President George Bush toured the Middle East to build Arab support for pressure on Tehran, Mr. ElBaradei appeared on Egyptian television on Feb. 5 to urge Arabs in the opposite direction, insisting Iran was cooperating and should not be pressured. And as he grows more and more isolated from Western powers intent on disarming Iran, Mr. ElBaradei has...

Nuclear Terror: After years of blindness, the International Atomic Energy Agency warns that Syria is concealing nuclear activity and Iran is hiding atomic facilities. Has the "watchdog" just been polishing its Nobel? The diplomats just love Mohamed ElBaradei, who is about to step down as director general of the United Nations' IAEA. He's the recipient of Georgetown's prestigious Raymond "Jit" Trainor Award for Distinction in the Conduct of Diplomacy. Also on his crammed mantelpiece can be found the Delta Air Lines Prize for Global Understanding, the Golden Dove of Peace award from the president of Italy, the Gandhi Prize for...

Iran (MNN) ― It is with great joy that Open Doors confirms the release of Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh, 30, today. For around nine months, the two Iranian Christian women have been held in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, two Christian converts from Islam, were released from Evin Prison in Tehran on Wednesday. Iran (MNN) ― It is with great joy that Open Doors confirms the release of Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh, 30, today. For around nine months, the two Iranian Christian women have been held in the notorious...

Representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are scheduled to meet today in Brussels to discuss future steps to dissuade Iran from developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Our message to the world leaders: If you want peace, prepare for war.

Iran rejected a UN-brokered nuclear deal Wednesday that would have sent its uranium stockpile abroad. The Obama administration is now under pressure to make good on its promises of 'consequences.' After weeks of hints that the rejection was coming, Tehran said Wednesday it could not accept a draft deal reached Oct. 1 in United Nations-brokered talks between Iranian officials and representatives of the US, France, and Russia. But with Tehran's "no" now official, Mr. Obama will be under pressure – domestically from Congress, and diplomatically from partners such as France, Britain, and Israel – to proceed with toughened international economic...

SEOUL/MANILA (Reuters) – World powers could have a package of measures against Iran "within weeks," U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday, warning Tehran of consequences for its failure to respond to an offer of a nuclear deal. However, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed talk of further punitive sanctions, saying the West had learnt from past failures. Iran on Wednesday rejected a deal to send enriched uranium abroad for rendering into fuel for medical purposes in Tehran, defying world powers which regarded the offer as a way to delay Iran's potential ability to make atomic bombs by at least...

President Obama took his “Do as I say, not as I do” routine to dizzying international heights today, demanding that Iran cease its “foot-dragging” over whether or not to comply with demands to halt development of its nuclear program... He made the demand while continuing to drag his own feet on whether or not to provide more troops in Afghanistan, something he’s been mulling over since last summer. Expect B-list “actress” Janeane Garofalo to be a featured guest on Bill Maher’s show soon to remind us, once agian that if the world criticizes Mahmood Ahmadinejad for taking his time, it’s...

Russia's KBM has been briefing Middle East and other militaries on the Igla man-portable air defense system. The Igla-S, an enhanced version of Igla-9K38, was touted as effective against fighter-jets, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles. Iran and Syria have received a legacy variant of Igla-S. The Igla-S has been touted as capable of downing a range of U.S. UAVs deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It also has night-firing capability," KBM said. "Igla-S MANPADS is a new-generation system featuring considerably extended firing range and enhanced kill probability against aerial targets and possessing a new quality for this class of...

Arab states, particularly in the Gulf, are seeking to build up their air power and missile defenses to counter any challenger from Iran. Mostly they're looking to their traditional arms suppliers in the West, the United States, Britain and France, but Russia is pushing hard for a piece of the action. This year's biennial Dubai air show, which opened Sunday in the United Arab Emirates, provided a showcase for the latest technology on offer. Air power has been the deciding factor in most Middle Eastern conflicts since the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, when Israeli warplanes annihilated the air forces of Egypt,...

THE CASE FOR SPACE-BASED DEFENSE The growing interest in nuclear technology by countries such as Iran presages the possibility that one or more nations may attempt to harness such a capability in the form of an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the United States, a prominent political scientist has warned. Such a scenario, writes Brian Kennedy of the Claremont Institute in the November 24th edition of the Wall Street Journal, is not far-fetched. "It would require the Iranians to be able to produce a warhead as sophisticated as we expect the Russians or the Chinese to possess. But that is...

Iran's foreign minister on Wednesday ruled out sending enriched uranium out of the country for further processing, effectively rejecting the latest UN plan aimed at preventing Teheran from building nuclear weapons. The United Nations last month offered a deal to take 70 percent of Iran's low-enriched uranium to reduce its stockpile of material that could be enriched to a higher level, and possibly be used to make nuclear weapons. "We will definitely not send our 5.3-percent enriched uranium out of the country," Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki told the semiofficial ISNA news agency. Instead Mottaki said Iran would consider some kind...

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says the Islamic Republic is considering to exchange its enriched uranium with nuclear fuel inside the country. "Iran will not send its 3.5-percent-enriched uranium out of the country," ISNA quoted Mottaki as saying on Wednesday. "That means we are considering to exchange the enriched uranium inside Iran," he went on to explain. Under a mid-October proposal discussed in Vienna, Iran is asked to send most of its domestically produced low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad to be converted into more highly enriched fuel rods for the Tehran reactor, which produces medical isotopes.

Operation HOTFOOT EDS was founded not only with the spirit of heroism but also with integral components to its business philosophy—teamwork, performance, and commitment. This year EDS celebrates the 25th anniversary of the singular event that defines this philosophy: the daring rescue of two of EDS' own employees imprisoned in Iran. On March 26, 2004, a panel discussion moderated by former TV newsman Murphy Martin marked the anniversary with laughter and much emotion. Taking part in the moderated session were Jeff Heller, EDS' president and chief operating officer; former hostages Paul Chiapparone and Bill Gaylord; company founder Ross Perot; and...

Note: Jimmy Carter, who rivals Bill Clinton for the worst president ever, has been lately defending his action or lack thereof in the Iranian hostage crisis. Here is some insight about the kind of people from whom Carter got advice. =================================================== FROM THE CHAPTER CALLED "The Unthinkable Commander in Chief" It is significant that the man Clinton turns to for military advice--who argued against the tanks and APCs for the raid in Mogadishu--is the same Warren Christopher (then a high official in Jimmy Carter's National Security Council) who helped plan the disastrous raid to rescue the hostages in Iran. At...

At the height of the protests following Iran's controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death -- filmed on a camera phone, then uploaded to the Web -- quickly became an international outrage, and Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government's hold on power. In A Death in Tehran, FRONTLINE revisits the events of last summer, shedding new light on Neda's life and death and the movement she helped inspire. In response to the international outcry over Neda's death...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Five people have been sentenced to death and 81 have received jail terms of up to 15 years in connection with unrest after Iran's disputed June election, state broadcaster IRIB reported on Tuesday. Citing a statement by the public relations office of Tehran's provincial court, it said those sentenced to death were affiliated to or members of 'counter-revolutionary groups'. It said the verdicts can be appealed. It was not immediately clear if the five were the same as those reported by an Iranian rights group earlier this week to have been sentenced to death. The IRIB report...

CHIANG MAI, Thailand: Former US President Jimmy Carter said he was pressed by his advisers to attack Iran during the hostage crisis there more than 30 years ago but resisted because he feared 20,000 Iranians could have died. Islamist militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and seized its occupants. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days. Carter said Monday that one proposed option was a military strike on Iran, but he chose to stick with negotiations to prevent bloodshed and bring the hostages home safely. "My main advisers insisted that I should attack Iran,"...

United Nations and Iranian officials have been secretly negotiating a deal to persuade world powers to lift sanctions and allow Tehran to retain the bulk of its nuclear program in return for cooperation with U.N. inspectors. According to a draft document seen by The Times of London, the 13-point agreement was drawn up in September by Mohamed ElBaradei, the directorgeneral of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an effort to break the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear program before he stands down at the end of this month. The IAEA denied the existence of the document, which was leaked to The...

Iranian construction of a previously secret uranium enrichment site is at an advanced stage, with high-tech equipment already in place at the fortified facility ahead of its 2011 startup, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report Monday. The revelation of the existence of the underground plant known as Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, has heightened concerns of other possible undeclared Iranian facilities that are not subject to IAEA oversight and therefore could be used for military purposes. In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the IAEA report "underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully...

Reformist news outlets report that Ramin Pourandarjani, "physician of Iran's Kahrizak detention centre" died last Tuesday. Norooz website reports that the 26-year-old physician died in his room at the medical building of Tehran's Security Forces. Reportedly, officials announced the cause of death to be "heart failure while sleeping." According to Norooz, Dr. Pourandarjani had examined some of the victims of Kahrizak detention centre such as Mohsen Ruholamini whom he had examined prior to his death. Norooz also claims that a week after Ruholamini's death, this physician was taken into custody until he made the announcement that cause of Ruholamini's death...

Americans know far more about Michael Jackson than they do the history of Iran and its relationship to the United States. Most of what America knows is wrong, having been subjected to pertinacious propaganda in Ayers’ based public education . Which is why the interest in the life and death of Neda Agah-Soltan was so facilely dwarfed by the opulent freak show that surrounded Michael Jackson. Neda was the beautiful young Iranian woman who was gunned down in the streets of Tehran for the crime of showing up. She showed up to take a stand for freedom and took a...

Increasingly irate over a delayed arms deal, Iran has threatened to manufacture an advanced missile system itself if Russia does not deliver it to Tehran soon. The warning, sounded by Alaeddin Bouroujerdi, a senior Iranian lawmaker, was the latest in a series of threats by Iranian officials angered at Russia for delaying delivery a much-vaunted missile sales agreement. "Iran is not a country to come to a halt in the face of non-cooperation of other countries," Bouroujerdi was quoted as saying in a local newspaper. "Naturally, and in light of Iran's capabilities, it will be able to produce missile defense...

It’s not necessarily much but it’s something. Russia has announced today that it will not activate Iran’s first nuclear power plant by the end of the year as planned. This comes on top of the joint call by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, and Barack Obama for Iran to agree an international deal over its nuclear programme. Russia is also postponing delivery of air defence missiles to Iran, a move that makes any Israeli air strike on Iran that much easier to pull off. Barack Obama has taken a lot of criticism for his wideranging, open-armed engagement with all sorts of...

Research Agency raised concern about possible further secret nuclear sites, Reuters reported quoting an IAEA report obtained by the news agency on Monday. According to the report, Iran told the IAEA it had begun building the site at Qom in 2007 - but the IAEA, the United Nations' global nuclear proliferation watchdog, had evidence the project had begun in 2002, paused in 2004 and resumed in 2006. The report said Iran had provided full access for IAEA inspectors on their first visit to the Qom site three weeks ago, but had yet to provide full, credible answers to verify that...

SHANGHAI — President Obama, fresh from making progress in his efforts to get Russia on board for possible tough new sanctions against Iran, arrived in China on Sunday, where he will pursue the even more difficult task of prodding China’s leaders to get tough on Iran. Making his first trip to China, Mr. Obama landed in Shanghai during a late-night downpour and was set to begin three days of meetings to discuss climate change, North Korea and the global economic crisis with President Hu Jintao. The economic negotiating began even before Mr. Obama touched down. China’s top banking regulator, Liu...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday reiterated that his country's rights on "the nuclear issue" are non-negotiable and its nuclear activities and cooperation happen within the framework of IAEA regulations, according to at report on the Iranian student news agency ISNA. "Iran is ready for constructive and honest cooperation with western countries in the field of nuclear technology," he was quoted by ISNA as saying, while warning that the West's confrontation with Iran only makes the country "more powerful and more developed." Speaking during a meeting with members of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) in Teheran, Ahmadinejad also...

The wife of Iran’s president made a rare public appearance and, even more rare, a speech at a forum on the eve of a United Nations summit to fight hunger that begins today. Azam al-Sadat Farahi almost never appears in public with her husband, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and is believed never to have addressed a public gathering. She came to the forum of wives of heads of state yesterday before the start today of the three-day summit on a strategy to fight world hunger, held at the Rome headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO. With a black...

ranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has underlined the need for solidarity among the media in Asia-Pacific and disseminate accurate news and information. He urged them to circulate message of friendship, peace and brotherhood of all nations throughout the globe. He made the remarks in a 'surprise' meeting with executive board members as well as editorial and technical experts of the Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) who met in Teheran on Sunday. More than 40 representatives of 18 member agencies including Malaysia, Russia, Japan, China, South Korea, Indonesia and India attended the meeting under the theme "A quest for global media...

VIENNA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Iran's belated revelation of a second uranium enrichment site raises concern about possible further secret nuclear sites in the country, according to a U.N. nuclear watchdog report on Monday obtained by Reuters. It said Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun building the bunkered site near Qom in 2007 but the IAEA had evidence the project began in 2002, paused in 2004 and resumed in 2006.

Half a year ago in Cairo, President Obama addressed the Muslim world. Global leftists lauded the speech as heralding instant change in the Middle East. The Obama-adoring pundits were right. Change came. But it's all bad. Instead of listening to the extravagant claims of our leftward-plunging media about how profoundly that speech affected Muslims, let's look at what's actually happened since Obama praised Islam and trashed America: Iran: No nukes? Strategic cooperation? Rule-of-law democracy? Greater freedom for the Iranian people? Naw. President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's regime plays Obama like a card sharp working a hick who just showed up with his...

The UN atomic agency unveils its latest report on Iran's disputed nuclear drive Monday, with world powers warning Tehran is "running out of time" to respond to a UN-brokered offer to end the standoff.

An Iranian former deputy defense minister who has been missing for nearly three years was abducted by Israeli agents and is now being held in Israel, several Iranian news Web sites reported Sunday. Ali Reza Asgari, a retired general who served in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, disappeared while on a private trip to Turkey in December 2006. In March of this year, a former German Defense Ministry official said Asgari had defected and was providing considerable information to the West on Iran's nuclear program.

When it comes to Iran, President Obama hasn’t made it to the top of his learning curve yet. Despite Tehran’s readily apparent games-playing in talks over its nuclear program, the president continues to hold out hope for a deal — any deal — with the Islamic Republic. Who knew Obama, who holds a Harvard Law degree, was such a slow learner? “Meaningful engagement and dialogue,” Obama & Co. had promised, was finally going to open wide the long-shuttered door between Washington and Tehran and help bring a newly cooperative Iran into the community of nations. Yet, nearly 10 months into...

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday time was running out for diplomacy in a dispute over Iran's nuclear programme, but a top Iranian official said it was up to the West to show it sincerely wanted a deal. Russia and France, both involved in talks with Iran over what the West fears are its plans for an atomic bomb, also put pressure on Tehran, with French Foreign Bernard Kouchner saying the Islamic republic looked set to reject a U.N.-drafted accord. Obama suggested patience was running low in the dispute with Iran, which faces possible harsher international sanctions or even...

Iran has in effect rejected a UN-brokered deal aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in an interview published on Sunday. "In practice, the answer has almost been given and it is negative. That is a shame, a shame, a shame," Kouchner told the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot ahead of a visit to the region later this week. The comments came as both the United States and Russia expressed frustration at Iran's failure to give an answer three weeks after it received the offer in high-level talks to defuse the stand-off. The West...

“It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb,” said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency per Daniel Dombey at FT.com.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cannot be removed from his post because his legitimacy comes from God, an official close to Iran's most powerful figure was reported Friday as saying. Khamenei, whose public persona is usually above politics, stoked controversy in Iran when he endorsed the disputed victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June's presidential elections, which plunged Iran into its deepest internal crisis since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Supporters of defeated candidates staged protests that were crushed by police, saying the vote was rigged. Mojtaba Zolnour, a Khamenei representative in the elite Revolutionary Guards,...

The al-Houthi tribe is involved in local uprisings in Yemen, attempts by Al-Qaida and Iran to ignite the Middle East, and power struggles between Saudi princes. They may yet destroy Yemeni unification. "The instructions we received from the king were not to act inside another state's territory, but we will not let anyone enter our territory." This is how the Saudi deputy defense minister, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, described the battle that has been going on since last week between Saudi forces and the Yemeni Shi'ite rebels of the al-Houthi tribe. [snip] Due to the lack of supervision by the...

Saudi Arabian troops and aircraft are now enforcing a ten kilometer deep "kill zone" on the Yemen side of their Yemen border. This is the first combat operation for Saudi forces since 1991 (during the liberation of Kuwait.) This is in support of a four month war between rebel Shia tribesmen and the Yemeni armed forces. Since November 5th, Saudi fighter bombers have flown over a hundred sorties against rebel targets just across the border. Hundreds of smart bombs and missiles have been used. Saudi artillery has fired hundreds of shells at the rebels, and Saudi helicopters and infantry now...

Nov 14, 2009 17:25 | Updated Nov 14, 2009 17:29 Iran has completely rejected a UN-brokered nuclear deal, but US President Barack Obama has postponed the official announcement on Teheran's refusal due to internal political reasons, Israel Radio quoted a senior western official as saying Saturday. The deal would see most of the Islamic Republic's uranium shipped to Russia and France for further processing. The official reportedly told journalists in Paris that Iran has also refused to resume nuclear talks with the six world powers.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- The showdown between Iran's clerical leaders and a resilient protest movement sharpened Saturday, as opposition leaders accused the government of becoming more brutal than the shah's regime and authorities announced a new Internet crackdown. Two of Iran's top pro-reform figures said in a Web statement that police used excessive force against anti-government protesters who took to the streets last week on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover.

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has deployed a special police unit to sweep Web sites for political material and prosecute those deemed to be spreading lies, Iranian media reported Saturday, in a step clearly aimed at choking off the embattled opposition's last real means of keeping its campaign alive.

Russia should honor a contract to sell a missile defense system to Iran and not bend to outside pressure, the Islamic Republic's defense minister said in remarks published on Thursday. Russia, which is under Western pressure to distance itself from Iran, has not followed through on proposals to supply high-grade S-300 air defense missiles. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Russia last month for not providing the arms to Iran, which is at odds with the West over its nuclear and missile programs. Israel says the S-300 systems could be used to defend Iranian nuclear facilities against potential air strikes....

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Just minutes before anti-riot police charged opposition marchers in Tehran last week, a new chant bubbled up from the crowd: "Death to Nobody." It was more than just a play on the "Death to America" slogans that are staples of Iran's political life. The cries give a sense of how much the protest movement has evolved since the raw outrage of last summer. The demonstrations have moved beyond narrow attacks on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his disputed re-election in June. They are now drifting toward a blanket challenge of the Islamic leadership's right to rule.

SHANE BAUER: The fluent Arabic speaker was based in Damascus, where he lived with Sarah Shourd... ...SARAH SHOURD: "Everyday I feel ashamed at what my country has done to [Iraq]". JOSH FATTAL: An environmentalist and teacher, he was recently employed by a non-profit organisation that researches sustainable lifestyles. He travelled to Damascus in the summer to meet Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd for a hiking holiday. He reportedly posted an entry on his Facebook page on 17 July, saying that he was in the Middle East and planning a trip to Kurdistan.

NEW YORK (AP) — In what could be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, federal prosecutors sought to take over four U.S. mosques, a New York City skyscraper and 100 acres in Prince William County owned by a Muslim organization suspected of being controlled by the Iranian government. Prosecutors on Thursday filed a civil complaint in federal court against the Alavi Foundation, seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets.

Shortly before Barack Obama took office, leaders of a prominent Iranian-American group in Washington began to fret. If the new president were to tap former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross to oversee the nation's Iran policy, they feared their long-running effort to persuade American officials to lift sanctions could wind up in tatters. Patrick Disney, acting policy director of National Iranian American Council (NIAC), summed up the strategy: "Create a media controversy" concerning Mr. Ross, whose support for a tough line on Iran was well known. "Those groups that feel comfortable being more aggressive in opposing Ross publicly (possibly Voters...

Whatever Happened to Sanctions? Malcolm A. Kline, November 13, 2009 It’s interesting that the same worthies on campus who clamor to disinvest from Israel have yet to endorse sanctions on Iran. It should be noted that, as Claire Lopez points out in a report for the Center for Security Policy, the Iranian government employs a Washington lobby whose primary purpose is to get sanctions lifted on the renegade regime....