Free Republic

…..However, with the advent of the Obama administration and the start of a policy of appeasement towards the Iranian regime, there was a general change of atmosphere at the VOA and as such, entry into the Persian section for those with known affiliations to the Islamic republic were facilitated. This approach was justified on the grounds that it would help attain the compromise needed with Iran to secure a nuclear agreement with the ‘5+1’. These developments took a disturbing turn when the annual task of assessing ‘News Talk’ and other programs of the VOA Persian was assigned to Mr. Hooman...

MOSCOW, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - An Iranian court has released on a $300,000 bail a Newsweek journalist with dual Iranian-Canadian citizenship, arrested in the wake of the disputed presidential elections in June, Iranian media said. Maziar Bahari, 42, who worked as a Newsweek reporter since 1998, was arrested on June 21 during the post-vote protests in Tehran "for his role in instigating events occurred after the presidential election," the Press TV said. "Bahari was released on 3 billion rials ($300,000) bail from Evin prison on Saturday night," the semi-official Islamic Labor News Agency said citing a judiciary source. Bahari...

Iran’s former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s quest to return to the spotlight now includes weighing in on a spat between US President Donald Trump and basketball star LeBron James. Ahmadinejad used Twitter — which is banned in Iran — to write Sunday: “In my opinion everyone especially a President should love all, and not differentiate between them.” He added that he loved NBA greats James and Michael Jordan, as well as former Denver Nuggets player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Trump wrote a tweet Friday night questioning James’ intelligence after he gave an interview to CNN and criticized the American president....

As the families of U.S. hostages currently held in Iran have struggled for years to rally the determination to bring their loved ones home, newly released emails from the former secretary of State reveal the infuriating truth that those with connections get their case raised to the top. In 2009, Iason Athanasiadis was covering the protests of the disputed election win of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir-Hossein Mousavi for the Washington Times. The Greek citizen was detained by Iranian authorities on June 17, 2009, as he tried to fly out of the country. Athanasiadis was thrown in Evin prison and released...

Al Quds Al Arabi on Saturday cited reliable sources in Tehran who said Iranian authorities ordered the arrest of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit to the city of Shiraz and that the arrest was made with the approval of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei after his remarks had been described as inciting unrest. The independent pan-Arab daily newspaper, published in London, learned that the authorities intended to impose house arrest on Ahmadinejad. Two weeks ago, on the Thursday that saw the start of anti-government protests in Iran, the former president, said in a speech to a crowd of residents...

A recent article by David Samuels at the New York Times Magazine, based on an interview with Obama's foreign policy guru Ben Rhodes, purported to explain how, and about what, the Obama administration lied to get public support for the Iran Scam. According to the article, the principal Obama lie involved who was the Iranian president when the negotiations with Iran began. It's much deeper and worse than that. As Paul Harvey would say, “Here’s “the rest of the story.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uogp40PeddI Iranian President Rouhani was elected on June 15, 2013 and assumed office on August 3d. According to Rhodes, negotiations started...

Two high-level Iranian government backers, including a former Islamic Republic official and another accused of lobbying on Tehran’s behalf, were hosted at the Obama White House for more than 30 meetings with top officials at key junctures in the former administration’s contested diplomacy with Iran, according to White House visitor logs that provide a window into the former administration’s outreach to leading pro-Iran advocates. Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of its national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, while Trita Parsi, a pro-Iran advocate long accused of hiding his ties to...

Iran's former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday stunned the country by unexpectedly filing to run in the May presidential election, contradicting a recommendation from the supreme leader to stay out of the race. Ahmadinejad's decision could upend an election many believed would be won by moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who negotiated the nuclear deal with world powers. Though Rouhani has yet to formally register, many viewed him as a shoe-in following Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's recommendation in September for Ahmadinejad to stand down and conservatives' inability to coalesce around a single candidate. Ahmadinejad's firebrand style could prove appealing for...

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a 3,500 word letter to President Donald Trump in which he slams the new administration’s restrictions on immigration and US “dominance” of the United Nations. […] … Ahmadinejad, who during his tenure as president threatened to “wipe Israel off the map” and publicly suggested the Holocaust was a hoax, chided Trump over his recent executive order temporarily restricting immigration from seven high-risk countries, saying the US must “value respect toward the diversity of nations and races.” Ahmadinejad went on to argue that the United States “belongs to all nations”, suggesting the US has no...

In the letter, posted on a website associated with the former president's office, Ahmadinejad focuses on the Supreme Court's decision in April. The court's 6-2 ruling allows families of victims of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and other attacks linked to Iran to collect monetary damages from Iran. At risk for Iran is $1.75 billion in bonds, plus accumulating interest, owned by Iran's Bank Markazi and held by Citibank in New York. "It is the clear expectation of the Iranian nation that the particular case of property seizure ... be quickly fixed by your excellency and that not...

When Iran’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stepped aside in 2013 — after eight years in office — it was clear that he had serious plans for his future. In fact, he had indicated this in a TV interview one year before leaving office, by pointing to his possible presence in Iran’s next government. The disqualification of his Vice President, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, from the 2013 presidential race, however, prevented this dream from becoming reality. But despite the disqualification of Mashaei, Ahmadinejad had no intention to leave the stage. Soon, he came up with a special plan for the recently held...

The hours of congressional testimony, the speeches and the press conferences this week were all, nominally, about Iraq. But another, equally explosive question - what to do about Iran - loomed over the presentations by Army Gen. David Petraeus, the American military commander in Iraq, over U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and over U.S. strategy for the Middle East. Petraeus and Crocker, arguing that there has been progress in stabilizing Iraq since President Bush ordered a troop build-up there last year, fingered Iran's support for Shiite militias in Iraq, which they called "special groups," as the No. 1 threat...

RUSH; Big news from the Middle East about the Iran deal. It turns out that we were negotiating with the Iranians before Kerry was secretary of state. We were negotiating with the Iranians before the election of the "moderate" Rouhani. We were negotiating an Iranian nuke deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when nobody knew what was happening. The Regime was telling us that they couldn't do anything 'cause Ahmadinejad was such a radical extremist goofball. We had to wait for a "moderate" to win, which was Rouhani, and after he did, that's when we got serious. It turns out none of...

Tehran, 17 Jan. (AKI) - One of the five Iranians arrested last week by the US army in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil is wanted in Austria in connection with the assassination of Kurdish leader Andol Rahman Ghassemlu in 1989. Mahommad Jaafari Sharoudi was one of five Iranian officials detained last week in the Kurdish-controlled city on charges of being connected to a faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran, that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. Abdol Rahman Ghassemlu, the historic leader of Iranian Kurds, was killed in an apartment in the outskirts of the Austrian capital...

The current Sheriff is Scott Israel; he was elected to office in November 2012. As Sheriff, Israel has made it a point to reach out to diverse crowds, including those who could be considered enemies of the U.S. and her allies. Broward Sheriff Scott Israel’s 2015 radical Muslim tour began this past January, when he posed for photos with Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout and a member of Zakkout’s Miami-based AMANA group at a local mosque. Zakkout is a big supporter of Hamas. On his Facebook page, one can find Hamas logos and photos of Hamas militants and leaders, including Hamas founders Ahmed Yassin and...

The Governor of the state, Jay Nixon, has declared a state of emergency and plans to mobilize the National Guard in anticipation of an imminent grand jury announcement on the Michael Brown case. Tensions are high in the area, as residents, businesses and police brace themselves for another round of rioting in the mainly black suburb of St. Louis. Their fears are well founded, as seasoned protest organizers are currently training activists to close in on and “shut down” the business district of nearby Clayton on the first business day after the grand jury goes public. Michael McPhearson The key...

On April 16, the United Muslim-Christian Forum (UMCF) held an interfaith event in Owego, New York, featuring Christian and Muslim speakers, including the mayor of the town. Its Web site proudly hosts a photo of Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan holding a UMCF sign. Far from the model of tolerance it casts itself as, the UMCF is a front for an anti-Semitic, Islamic extremist group named Muslims of the Americas (MOA), and the keynote speaker warned that Allah will destroy whoever supports Koran burnings, and possibly the entire country. The MOA was exposed in the Christian Action Network’s (CAN) 2009...

NEW YORK (CNN) – President Obama spoke Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly as he tackles a range of thorny international issues with his counterparts. Obama said Iran and North Korea “must be held accountable” if they continue to ignore international nuclear weapons treaties. Iran recently reiterated its unwillingness to give up its nuclear program, which the United States and other Western nations fear is being used to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its program is strictly for civilian power. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said she didn’t expect a direct meeting between Obama and Iran’s president, Mahmoud...

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has challenged his successor, Hassan Rouhani, to a debate intended to defend his eight-year record in office, reports the British Telegraph. In his first political intervention since stepping down last August, the former president expressed outrage at a recent televised speech in which Rouhani took aim at Ahmadinejad’s stewardship of Iran’s economy. Rouhani said that his predecessor had presided over “unprecedented stagflation” in an address made to mark his own administration's first 100 days at the helm. During Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Iran’s currency plummeted to an all-time low as the country faced a growing shortage of...

IRGC and the spiritual vacuum of Latin American leftists The following is a glimpse of the kind of thing I often see while researching the activities of the IRGC (writ large) in Latin America. Communism fails to provide for the spiritual needs of leftwing political activists, and the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to have done a pretty good job of inserting themselves and the Khomeinist version of Shiism into that void. (Either that or the IRI is throwing lots of money around and the leftists are whores, which is certainly possible, but for the moment I'll take the more...