Free Republic

If Iran is in the news because of its nuclear program, the greatest threat to the country’s well-being isn’t economic sanctions or the Sunni-Shiite schism. Rather, the greatest threat to Iran may be that the country is running out of water. The problem is so severe that social unrest, economic dislocation, even out migration can all be imagined. One government advisor recently predicted that as many as fifty million Iranians—seventy percent of Iran’s population—may be forced to leave because of a lack of water. Water problems are a proxy for bad governance, and Iran has water problems galore. By contrast,...

Already prone to droughts, Iran has exacerbated the problem with poor water management policies, which Mr. Pezeshkian acknowledged on Monday. Climate change, too, has played a role; the country has weathered five consecutive years of drought. Now, the crisis has grown so extreme that the government shut down all government offices and services in Tehran and more than two dozen other cities across the country on Wednesday, creating a three-day weekend in an attempt to lower water and electricity usage. Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokeswoman, said cities could have similar closures once or twice a week going forward, and suggested...

A social media account affiliated with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency published a pointed critique Friday of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accusing him of being unfit to govern due to alleged substance abuse and detachment from public needs. “How can a leader lead when they sleep half the day and spend the other half high on substances?” read the post in Farsi from the @MossadSpokesman account on X, formerly Twitter. It ended with a charged refrain: “Water, electricity, life!” The post, which was automatically translated from its original Farsi, did not name Khamenei directly but was widely interpreted as...

Following the 12-day war, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spends most days snoozing and getting “high,” an outrageous post from the Mossad’s Farsi social media account mysteriously claimed. “How can a leader lead when they sleep half the day and spend the other half high on substances?” the post asked. The statement came from a bizarre new premium X account that launched in recent weeks, claiming to be the official Farsi-language spokesperson — the official dialect of Iran — for the cunning Israeli intelligence agency, with regular posts trolling the Iranian regime. “Using drugs and speaking to spirits are...

At a United Nations conference in New York this week, the Holy See reaffirmed its longstanding support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling it the “only viable and equitable path” to a just and lasting peace. Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN, stressed that peace must be rooted in “secure and internationally recognized borders,” according to Vatican News. He also condemned the terrorist attacks by Hamas, stating that “in the light of the profound anguish and terrible human suffering that has befallen the region,” the Holy See “unequivocally” denounces such violence. “Terrorism...

There has been a spate of mysterious fires and explosions across Iran in recent weeks. Naturally the Iranians suspect, with reason, that agents of Israel are responsible. But Iran doesn’t dare to accuse Israel publicly, because that would then require that Iran respond with an attack on the Jewish state, and then Israel would answer back with a far more devastating attack. In fact, Israel may well be engaging in sabotage in order to prevent Iran from renewing its aggressive campaign against Israel, thus giving Israel all the excuse it needs to renew its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic,...

Did we hit Iran hard enough before we stopped? This is always the question, anytime you engage in diplomacy, warfare, or a combination of the two. When it becomes necessary to do something, the question is “How much?” Israel has led the effort against Iran, as Iran has been the chief aggressor against Israel. For 46 years now, the mullahs who rule that poor country have not only threatened Israel (and the USA too) on a constant basis, they have also funded, trained, and directed numerous terrorist organizations in the region, chief among which are Hamas of Gaza, Hezbollah of...

The ruling elites of the Islamic Republic of Iran are not known worldwide for their friendly, sunny dispositions; in fact, they have a long and ever-growing list of pet hates, including America, Israel, women (at least if their heads are uncovered and they’re out in public), and man’s other best friend, dogs. The ruling Iranian mullahs have now extended a ban that was already in effect in over twenty Iranian cities to the entire country: it is now against the law to walk the dog. That means, of course, that while private ownership of dogs as pets is ostensibly permitted...

All detainees had previously attempted illegal border crossings and are now awaiting deportation proceedings.. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman confirmed Tuesday that five Iranians were arrested while attempting to illegally cross the U.S. northern border with Canada. "On July 1, Border Patrol Agents from the Champlain, New York Station, responded to suspicious activity near Mooers Forks, NY," CBP's Swanton Sector said on Facebook. "Agents located a minivan occupied by five citizens of Iran and two citizens of Uzbekistan." The Champlain Station is part of the Swanton Sector. Swanton is a rural town in Vermont near Highway 89 just...

The picture, shared to Instagram, appears to portray two large nuclear explosions with fallout across Israel.

In a long-overdue repudiation of international lawfare cloaked as human rights work, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has slammed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’s so-called “special rapporteur” for Palestinian territories, whose tenure has been the epitome of anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Israeli provocation theatre. Albanese, an Italian academic turned ideological inquisitor, was appointed in 2022 by the United Nations Human Rights Council—a body whose moral compass spins like it was borrowed from James Comey, Crossfire Hurricane edition. Among its current members: China, Cuba, Sudan, and South Africa—a rogue’s gallery of surveillance states, strongmen, and serial rights abusers, nations...

International Atomic Energy Agency previously said Iran could still have stockpiles of enriched uranium ISRAEL says some of Iran's highly-enriched near weapons-grade uranium stockpile survived US bombings during the 12-Day War last month. Doubts remained about whether Iran quietly removed 408.6 kgs of uranium from its most sensitive sites before the strikes - potentially hiding nuclear material elsewhere in the country. The uranium in question is enriched to 60 per cent - way above levels for civilian usage but slightly below weapons-grade. That material, if further refined to 90 per cent, would theoretically be sufficient to produce more than nine...

Areligious decree or fatwa issued by two senior Iranian clerics calling for the killing of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly gained support from about 10 other clerics and attracted alleged fundraising online. The ten state-appointed clerics issued an open letter on Monday referring to US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister as "infidel combatants", an Islamic legal term for a non-believer at war with Muslims who deserves death. In a speech delivered in Azeri, another state-appointed cleric in Iran's West Azarbaijan Province announced a reward of 100 billion tomans (approximately $1.14 million) for anyone who kills Trump....

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told interviewer Tucker Carlson that people shouldn't take his country's 'death to America' slogans literally – claiming the phrase is more about calling for a 'death to bullying.' Pezeshkian made the comment to the podcaster and former Fox News host, who wanted to know if Americans should fear the phrase calling for their country's annihilation or having the U.S. referred to as the 'great Satan.' The Iranian president called it a 'very wrong impression.' 'When they say death to the United States ... they don't mean death for the people of the United States or even...

In the wake of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, the regime appears to be turning inward — escalating repression with chilling speed. According to Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, the Islamic Republic is accelerating toward what he said is a "North Korea-style model of isolation and control." "We’re witnessing a kind of domestic isolation that will have major consequences for the Iranian people," Aarabi told Fox News Digital. "The regime has always been totalitarian, but the level of suppression now is unprecedented. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before." A source inside Iran...

The leader of a Swedish criminal network accused of assisting Tehran in attacks on Israeli-linked targets in Europe is currently living in Iran under the protection of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), sources told Iran International. Rawa Majid received funds from Iran’s embassy in Denmark to help coordinate attacks against Israeli diplomatic facilities in Copenhagen and Stockholm, according to a source familiar with the matter inside the IRGC. The source also said the gang leader travels between Iran and Afghanistan for operations overseen by the IRGC. Majid leads a criminal group, Foxtrot, recently sanctioned by the UK and the...

WASHINGTON — Today, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Foxtrot Network, a transnational criminal organization (TCO) primarily based in Sweden that has trafficked illicit drugs and that carried out attacks on Israelis and Jews in Europe, along with its fugitive leader Rawa Majid. In January 2024, the Foxtrot Network orchestrated an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, on behalf of the Government of Iran. “Iran’s brazen use of transnational criminal organizations and narcotics traffickers underscores the regime’s attempts to achieve its aims through any means, with no regard for the cost to communities across Europe,”...

A notorious Kurdish gangster has fled Turkey to avoid extradition on drug-trafficking charges, a Swedish prosecutor has told The National. Rawa Majid, 39, known as the Kurdish Fox, had been living in Turkey, where his citizenship protected him from being extradited to Sweden, and was widely accused of playing a major part in gang violence. Authorities had hoped Majid’s prosecution on forgery charges would result in his citizenship being revoked, allowing his return to Sweden. But Henrik Soderman, who submitted the first extradition request to Turkey, has now confirmed that Majid, who leads the Foxtrot Network of criminals, is no...

The head of one of Sweden's biggest crime organizations, accused of instigating a surge in violent crime, has been arrested more than 1,600 miles away in Turkey, Swedish police said on Friday. Police did not identify the man by name but Swedish media named him as 35-year-old Ismail Abdo, head of the Rumba crime organization and alleged to have been orchestrating operations from abroad. Abdo is one of Sweden's most wanted criminals and the subject of an international arrest warrant since 2024. The Scandinavian country, once known for its low crime rates, has struggled for years to rein in organized...

Thousands of enraged Iranians burned the US flag and chanted “death to America” and “Israel” Saturday as the Islamic Republic buried the head of its armed forces and other top commanders who were killed during the 12-day war. The caskets of about 60 corpses, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s chief Generals Hossein Salami and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, were marched through the streets of downtown Tehran for the first public funerals since President Trump helped broker a June 23 cease-fire between the two Middle Eastern countries. “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” the crowds screamed as flags of both countries...