Free Republic

Grand Ayatollah Moussavi-Ardebili who died today aged 91, was one of the pillars of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. For eight years between 1981-1989, as the head of Iran’s Supreme Court, he was the highest judicial authority in the Islamic Republic during the harshest years of the post-revolution religious dictatorship in Iran. The massacre of political prisoners in Iran in 1988, took place when Mousavi-Ardebili was the head of the Supreme Court. More than 5000 political prisoners, some barely in their teens, who were sentenced to prison sentences and not execution, were summarily re-tried by kangaroo-courts and asked two...

Would you want to cite someone who has been thoroughly discredited in the very field he is supposed to be an expert in? Well, that is exactly what several news organizations did yesterday including Charlie Rose on PBS, the New York Times, and Bloomberg when they cited Gary Sick as an expert on Iran in stories about the nuke "deal" which was actually more of an agreement on the framework to discuss the...well, you get it. It really wasn't an actual deal but Gary Sick was chirping away like it was some sort of positive development.. Of course none...

Hitler's Muslim Nephew Comes to New York September 24, 2007 FrontPageMagazine.com Kenneth R. Timmerman What was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinking? Apparently the former Democrat believed that escorting Iran’s Hitler-wannabe president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the site of the September 11 memorial at Ground Zero would generate a terrific photo op. “Here I am with world leaders,” that type of thing. After all, Bloomberg has already made his appearance at the “World Leaders Forum” at Columbia University, so he was in the zone. And last year, U.S. News & World Report crowned him as one of America’s “best leaders.” But...

Why Does Columbia host Ahmadinejad? Mohammad Parvin and Hassan Daioleslam September 21, 2007 Iran's President Mahmood Ahmadinejad is scheduled to speak at Columbia University on Monday September 24th. This arrangement is not accidental. The event would have not been possible without the tireless and focused efforts of the well known Tehran advocate Dr. Gary Sick, an influential figure in Columbia. As it has already been examined in a recent article "Pro-Ayatollahs Disinformation and Manipulation Campaign by Washington Think Tankers"1, the Iranian lobby in US could not exist without generous assistance of some American interest groups and proxies such as Dr...

I hesitate to weigh in on this subject with so many interesting and insightful contributions already posted. However, since I've been doing a series of interviews, I have had to develop opinions on all aspects of the Iranian elections. Since everyone else is doing it, here are my own questions, comments and evolving views. Ahmadinejad seems to have been the beneficiary of a populist revolt (in addition to a little polling station assistance from his friends in the Revolutionary Guards and Basij). A friend of mine compares this to the election of Communist mayors in Italy during the Cold War...

During Monday's program, I posed some questions about Alex Polier, the woman now denying any affair with John F. Kerry: When did she leave the United States? Who made her reservations? Who paid for her ticket? How long will she be gone? How is she earning a living? How long has she been engaged? Why did she tape an interview with an American network before she left? Who set that up? What about her medical records and dental records? Could we maybe see those? Why did the father say Kerry's a "sleazeball," on Friday, and now is going to vote...

In a rare high-level meeting between Iran and the United States, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and U.S. Senator Joseph Biden held 90-minute talks on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Analysts say the meeting marks an important first step toward improved ties between the two nations. Prague, 27 January 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and U.S. Senator Joseph Biden did not comment on the nature of their talks on 23 January on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. But Iran's Foreign Ministry has since said the meeting was not...

<p>The toppling of Saddam Hussein's Iraq has emboldened a tight-knit group of Bush administration advisers who are urging the president to threaten military force against other authoritarian regimes with terrorist ties, including Syria and Iran, according to administration officials.</p> <p>This emerging strategy of ''preemptive deterrence'' received an important boost on Friday when members of Congress aligned with neoconservatives in the Bush administration proposed legislation authorizing the White House to impose stiff penalties, including diplomatic sanctions, on Syria if it does not take immediate action to end its occupation of Lebanon, support for anti-Israel terror groups, and development of weapons of mass destruction.</p>