Free Republic

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed on Monday that protests inside the country were the work of Israel and the United States. At least 92 people have been killed in protests over the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police. Amini was pronounced dead on September 16 after she was detained for allegedly breaching rules requiring women to wear hijabs and modest clothes. Her death sparked Iran's biggest wave of popular unrest in almost three years. Khamenei spoke about the protests this week for the first time since they began, telling an audience...

The Lockerbie bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by a Syrian-based terrorist group, a former Iranian intelligence officer has admitted. Abolghassem Mesbahi, a defector to Germany, said Pan Am flight 103 was downed in 1988 in retaliation for a US Navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier, in which 290 people died. He claims the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was Iran’s Supreme Leader, ordered the bombing “to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian Airbus”. …

For six months, Suki Kim worked as an English teacher at an elite school for North Korea's future leaders -- while writing a book on one of the world's most repressive regimes. As she helped her students grapple with concepts like "truth" and "critical thinking," she came to wonder: Was teaching these students to seek the truth putting them in peril? This talk was part of a session at TED2015 .

A senior cleric said that supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei will not accept any threat or intimidation from enemy. Tehran Friday Prayers’ substitute Leader Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani made the remarks in his sermons to a large number of worshipers in Tehran University campus. 

Partial election results in Iran on Saturday point to major gains by reformists and moderates who favor expanding freedoms and engaging with the West, and who defended the recently implemented nuclear deal with world powers against opposition from hard-liners. Friday's election was the first since last summer's agreement was finalized, lifting international economic sanctions in exchange for Iran curbing its nuclear program. U.S. officials had hoped the deal would strengthen President Hassan Rouhani and other moderates, paving the way for greater cooperation on other regional issues. Reports in the semi-official Fars and Mehr news agencies showed hard-liners losing ground in...

On February 26, the ayatollahs have scheduled two "elections" in Iran: one for the parliament and one for the Assembly of Experts, a body that is supposed to monitor the supreme leader and choose a replacement when the time comes. Some in the West tout this as the potential start of a new era of moderation. After all it is the first election since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers. But the nuclear deal cannot be the only criteria by which the West determines the prospects for moderation in Iran. Equally or more important is...

Nonetheless, the president told 'The New Yorker' that the Iranian government's behavior was not as extreme as its rhetoric suggests. In his latest attempt to sell the public on the merits of the Iran nuclear agreement, US President Barack Obama told an American news magazine earlier this week that he was not naive about the threats against Israel made by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's supreme leader. “His ideology is steeped with anti-Semitism, and if he could, without catastrophic costs, inflict great harm on Israel, I’m confident that he would,” Obama told journalist Robin Wright of The New Yorker....

Obama’s peace partner tweeted out a picture today of Barack Obama committing suicide.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top foreign affairs adviser revealed on Tuesday that despite the nuclear deal sealed last Tuesday, international inspectors will not be allowed to visit Iran’s covert military sites that are said to house its secret nuclear weapons program. The aide, Ali Akbar Velayati, was quoted by the semi-official Fars News Agency saying that world powers “have made some comments about defensive and missile issues, but Iran will not allow them to visit our military centers and interfere in decisions about the type of Iran’s defensive weapons.” His statement raises concerns even higher over the complete...

Sure - exactly with America needs. A theocratic fanatic who wants to wipe Israel off the map and leads the chants of "Death to America" every Friday after prayers. What could have possessed our secretary of state to tell his Iranian counterpart that he wishes the US had a leader like Iran's Supreme Leader? Washington Free Beacon: Secretary of State John Kerry told his Iranian counterpart that he wished the United States had a leader more like Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, according to comments made by a senior Iranian cleric and repeated in the country’s state-run media. Ayatollah Alam...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: With respect to the Supreme Leader, yes, it's a pretty important title. It seems a little more clear cut than president. On the other hand, there may be ways of structuring a final deal that satisfies their pride, their optics, their politics, but meet our core practical objectives. And that's what we've got to give the negotiators room to determine.

President Obama has long known that the real decision maker in Iran is Ayatollah Khamenei, the so-called supreme leader. While other Iranian officials have negotiated with Western powers over the mullahs’ nuclear program, Khamenei’s opinion is the only one that really counts. It is for this reason that Obama began writing directly to Khamenei early in his presidency. Khamenei Earlier today, Khamenei broke his silence on the supposed “framework” the Obama administration has been trumpeting as the basis for a nuclear accord. Khamenei’s speech pulled the rug out from underneath the administration. Khamenei accused the Obama administration of “lying” about...

The Obama administration toed a hard line Monday against Benjamin Netanyahu for his comments about Israeli Arabs and Palestinian statehood leading up to Israel’s election last week, but downplayed concerns over “death to America” remarks Iran’s supreme leader made over the weekend. The White House also seemed to warmly welcome input from 367 House members reiterating Congress‘ role in reaching a final nuclear agreement with Tehran, despite its vigorous attacks on an earlier letter to the Iranian leadership from 47 GOP senators explaining that any deal Iran may strike with the U.S. needs to be submitted to Congress to be...

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has cancer. After him are men even less likely to comply with a nuclear deal. ********************** Negotiators from Iran and the P5+1 powers led by the U.S. are racing against a March 31 deadline to conclude a nuclear deal in Lausanne, Switzerland. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters on Saturday that negotiators had made “genuine progress” but that “important gaps remain.” Yet what happens if the Iranian leadership that the U.S. and others are dealing with now is not in place to implement any agreement? Two recent developments suggest that the Islamic Republic may be...

Iran has selected a new figure to head its national Assembly of Experts, a body that governs the tenure of the Supreme leader, state news agency FARS reported on Tuesday. Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, a cleric who had served as the head of Iran's Judiciary branch between 1989 and 1999, was among other candidates considered for the position, both of whom are senior clerics in the Islamic Republic's regime and hold the title of Ayatollah. Yazdi's selection to this new position comes in light of reports that the current Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who suffers from stage four prostate cancer, was...

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has claimed that heightened anti-Israel sentiments across the globe serve as a sign of "divine help" in the Islamic Republic's fight against its arch enemy. "Increasing global hatred of #Israel is a sign of divine help," he wrote late Monday on Twitter.Iran's leading cleric came out against the pro-Israel lobby, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the group's annual confab on Monday. The premier warned of the existential threat a nuclear Iran would pose to Israel during his speech at the AIPAC conference, which came ahead of his...

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is currently hospitalized in serious condition at a hospital in Tehran, according to unofficial reports. Khamenei is suffering from prostate cancer that has reportedly spread to the rest of his body. Earlier this week, the French newspaper Le Figaro quoted Western intelligence officials as saying that the cancer was discovered about ten years ago. "The cancer is in stage four, in other words has spread." Doctors estimate "he has two years left to live."

Unconfirmed reports say Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei's prostate cancer has progressed and spread throughout his body. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is currently hospitalized in serious condition at a hospital in Tehran, according to unofficial reports. Khamenei is suffering from prostate cancer that has reportedly spread to the rest of his body. Earlier this week, the French newspaper Le Figaro quoted Western intelligence officials as saying that the cancer was discovered about ten years ago. "The cancer is in stage four, in other words has spread." Doctors estimate "he has two years left to live." On September 8, Khamenei underwent surgery and...

Just in time for Purim, the Jewish holiday celebrating the redemption of the Jewish people from plots of genocide in ancient Persia, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was reportedly hospitalized in critical condition on Wednesday. According to Arab media reports cited by Israel Hayom, Khamenei was urgently brought to a hospital in Tehran after several of his bodily systems had already failed. The reports add that the 76-year-old supreme leader of the Islamic regime has undergone surgery and remains in critical condition. Recently it has been reported that he was suffering from prostate cancer which had spread to additional...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday urged the world to insist on tough negotiations that ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon. Speaking to NBC News a day after his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu cautioned against Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's charm offensive, which he described as a strategy carried out to woo the West at the behest of the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. "[The Iranian people] are governed not by Rouhani. They're governed by Ayatollah Khamenei. He heads a cult. That cult is wild in its ambitions and its aggression," Netanyahu said. The prime...