Free Republic

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday launched into his customary tirade against Israel and the West at the United Nations. Announcing he planned "to analyze the current situation from a different angle," Ahmadinejad immediately lambasted Israel saying the "Zionist regime imposes terror on the Palestinian people." Ahmadinejad also cast aspersion on the Holocaust and hinted the September 9/11 attacks occurred under dubious circumstances as well. The world, Ahmadinejad mused, "must wonder, if after six decades the Holocaust is still used as an excuse to pay ransom to the Zionists… what will happen if the same amount of money was allocated...

More than seventeen years after a Clinton administration State Department spokesperson told USA Today that Iran’s nuclear program had none of the characteristics of a peaceful energy program and all of the hallmarks of a weapons program, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released a statement indicating that they are “increasingly concerned” about intelligence that shows that Iran is in fact working on nuclear weapons.

The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was slapped in the face by the head of the country's Revolutionary Guard, according to the latest WikiLeaks release. The February 2010 cable, classified secret and puckishly headlined, 'He Who Got Slapped,' quotes an intelligence source recounting a contentious meeting. Ahmedinejad had suggested new measures easing restrictions on the press to Iran's Supreme National Security Council. The Iranian ruling body were trying to work out their response in the wake of Tehran's explosive pro-democracy street protests of 2009. 'Ahmadinejad claimed that "people feel suffocated" and mused that to defuse the situation it may be necessary...

Iranian leader speaks at Hizbullah rally in his honor, Nasrallah calls Ahmadinejad "strong support for the opposition" in televised speech. Hizbullah held a General Assembly meeting and mass rally in Beirut on Wednesday evening, in honor of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad who is on a two-day visit to the country. Speaking to the assembled supporters at the event via an interpreter, Ahmadinejad praised Lebanon for being an "example" and called it a "university for Jihad." Lebanon and Iran, he said, are "two nations that love each other and have much in common," primarily the fight against Israel.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad warned the Obama administration today that if Iran's nuclear facilities are attacked, the U.S. will face a war that "would know no boundaries." He said that Iran is on the brink of becoming a nuclear power, and warned Israel and the U.S. against attacking its nuclear facilities. Asked about the possibility of a U.S.-supported Israeli air strike against Iran, the fiery Iranian leader said an attack would be considered an act of war, and suggested the U.S. is unprepared for the consequences.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency now not only admits that Iran's at work on nuclear warheads, but acknowledges that Tehran never stopped working on them -- despite no end of pleas, pledges and promises. Burned by its miscall on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the US intelligence community has played it too safe on this one, long insisting that Iran halted warhead research in 2003. There were plenty of dissenting voices. But President George Bush didn't want another fight, and President Obama's already punch drunk. Now the genie's out of the bottle of isotopes. With the departure of anti-Israel...

Iran's ambassador to the UN nuclear watchdog insists that Tehran will not bow to the West's pressure on Tehran's abandoning of its enrichment activities. "Iran will never give up enrichment at any price. Even the threat of military attack will not stop us," said Ali-Asghar Soltanieh in an interview with the New Statesman, a British current affairs magazine published Wednesday. The Iranian ambassador reiterated that the West had to accept that Iran was a "master of enrichment." "The West just has to cope with a strong Iran, a country with thousands of years of civilization that is now the master...

Whoever controls the controls the world’s “energy and wealth,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted by IRNA as saying Saturday. Ahmadinejad told an audience in Teheran, “Many countries have, unsuccessfully, tried during the past years to become a superpower in the region but they failed as they play no role at the international equations.” “It is now clear that whoever dominates the can rule the entire world too,” he added.

Iranians gather at Azadi (freedom) square to mark the 27th anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution, as they carry a placard in support of Iran's nuclear technology in Tehran February 11, 2006. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi Iran continues to treat us like suckers because we behave like suckers born every minute: "I made it quite clear that when they argue that their nuclear facilities are genuinely for peaceful purposes the burden of proof is on their side," he said. Ahmadinejad said Friday his country has complied with requirements to inform the IAEA six months before a new enrichment facility becomes operational, and was...

TEHRAN, Iran – Opposition political activists and protesters stood trial in Tehran Saturday on charges of rioting and conspiring against the ruling system in the country's first trial following the disputed presidential election, Iran's state media reported.

Given the turmoil unfolding around him, the soothing call for peace and harmony seemed to belong to an alien planet. But if Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sensed anything untoward in his words, he didn't show it. "Everybody should be patient," he told a televised gathering yesterday evening convened to discuss last week's disputed presidential election. "Tolerance is very difficult, whether for he who has won, or the one who is defeated. Increase the capacity for defeat in yourself." Khamenei's entrance into the centre of the crisis triggered by the biggest mass protests since the 1979 revolution seemed to...

polls Friday to choose their president. The country is bitterly divided between the backers of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and those who support his biggest rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. A week of feverish campaigning has left both sides worried the other will somehow steal the victory. When reform-minded Mohammed Khatami stormed to power unexpectedly in 1997, it was said the streets were full of excited youth. But this week in Tehran, the enthusiastic crowds, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, were said to be greater. It was dawn Thursday, and the early morning call to prayer had already sounded before the...

TEHRAN, June 9 -- Three days before Iranians go to the polls to elect a president, one of the country's most powerful clerics, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, issued an open letter on Tuesday complaining that the country's supreme leader has remained silent in the face of "insults, lies and false allegations" by incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The unusual letter reflects the intensity of the Iranian election campaign, laying bare the deep political rifts and sore feelings within the country's leadership. It is rare for senior Iranian clerics to publicly criticize the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani's letter came a...

Equating Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad with Adolf Hitler, top Israeli leaders have said they will not allow Holocaust deniers to repeat a genocide against Jews. "It is hard to fathom why despots such as Hitler - the Nazi, Stalin - the Bolshevik, and Ahmadinejad - the Persian, chose the Jews as the main target for their hatred, their madness and their violence," president Shimon Peres said in a speech at a ceremony to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day. Peres, who was speaking at Holocaust Museum 'Yad Vashem', vowed to prevent genocide against the Jews and denounced Ahmedinejad for his strong rhetoric...

While it was gratifying to see some members of the EU walk out on his speech, the fact remains Ahmeddinejad was also heavily applauded. But… what was the upshot of the walk out? What did it really mean? And did Ahmedinajad advance the course of the Palestinians? While the EU has been very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, while for years it has been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear plans, the putrid little maggot may have overplayed his hand this time. Perhaps… The Shiite Muslim President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, is deeply committed to the Islamic Messiah, al Mahdi… Ahmadinejad...

The West fears progress towards atomic weapons as President Ahmedinejad celebrates his country's big leap forward A triumphant President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad opened Iran's first plant for producing nuclear fuel today, marking a significant leap forward for his controversial nuclear programme and sparking international fears that the Islamic Republic may be closer than ever to acquiring an atomic weapon. Just two months before crucial elections in which he is pitted against a powerful moderate candidate, the hardline Iranian leader celebrated the breakthrough in his country's pursuit of nuclear technology, saying that Iranian scientists have tested two new types of enrichment centrifuges...

When Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was running for President of Iran, he was fawned over in Iranian and regional media as a simple man, a man of the people, and a real populist. In short, no critical examinations of his policies or beliefs occurred, much to the later dismay of the Iranian people and the the international community. Rather than pursue policies to build an effective Iranian state, Ahmedinejad pursued funding international terrorism, a spewing virulent anti-semitism directed towards Israel, and the jewish community in general. He turned out to be hostile to the West, and posing a serious threat to...

Visiting former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder criticised on Saturday Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for casting doubt over the Holocaust, saying the slaughter of 6 million Jews by Nazis was a fact. Since coming to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad has provoked international condemnation for saying the Holocaust was a "myth" and calling Israel a "tumour" in the Middle East. "The Holocaust is a historic fact and there is no sense in denying this unparalleled crime," Schroeder told the Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce. "Iran needs to take responsibility and respect international rules, if it wants to be taken seriously as...

TEHRAN, Jan. 28 (ISNA)-Iran hails fundamental and righteous changes in the US policy, said Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in its provincial tour to the western Iranian city of Kermanshah on Wednesday. Iran will look into the US words and actions and any fundamental change is hailed by Iran, he said. If the new US administration talks of change, it should end support for Zionists who are uncultured, murderer and forged and let Palestinians decide on their own fates, he continued. If the change will be only a superficial one which includes changes in tactics, literature and using new words, its...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday congratulated president-elect Barack Obama on his success -- rare praise between the two countries which are archfoes, state agency IRNA reported. "I congratulate you on being able to attract the majority of votes of the participants of the election," Ahmadinejad said in a message to Obama carried by IRNA. "You know the opportunities bestowed upon people by God are short-lived," he said. "I hope you make the most of the chance of service and leave a good name by preferring people's real interests and justice to the insatiable demands of a...