Free Republic

Top News Story Iran Focus Tehran, Iran, Sep. 04 – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the jihad against Israel must continue and be strengthened, Iran’s semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami reported on Sunday. “The only way to fight the Zionist enemy is to continue and increase resistance and jihad”, Ayatollah Khamenei said at a meeting on Saturday with secretary general of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Abdullah, the hard-line daily Jomhouri Islami wrote. Iran’s official policy is to call for the annihilation of the Jewish state. The country’s clerical rulers have been strongly opposed to Palestinian President...

Top News Story U.S., Europe Must Forge Broader Alliance, Says State's Fried The Washington File, Embassy of the U.S., London: America and Europe must work together to support democratic development throughout the broader Middle East, just as they supported the democratic aspirations of pro-democracy movements in central and Eastern Europe, says the State Department’s Daniel Fried. Speaking in Paris September 1, the day after attending a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Solidarity in Gdansk, Poland, Fried said the Polish people “achieved democracy through their own efforts, but they had support from abroad,” including from Western...

Top News Story Iranian President Gets Terror Law Exception An Excerpt: World News Tonight, ABC News:State Department says Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a terrorist, but will grant him a visa anyway, ABC News has learned. The State Department has issued a legal finding that Ahmadinejad is ineligible for a U.S. visa because of section 212(a)3(b) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which says anyone with terrorist ties cannot be granted a visa. But U.S. officials have decided to waive section 212, so that Ahmadinejad can get a limited visa to attend the United Nations General Assembly, which begins...

Top News Story See no evil? (Washington, D.C.): The leaking earlier this month of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) projection that Iran is a decade away from obtaining nuclear weapons - doubling previous official estimates - is, in some ways, more ominous than would have been a finding that the mullahs are about to get "the Bomb." After all, the latter would be no surprise, given the considerable evidence (albeit, much of it circumstantial) that has accumulated about Tehran's intentions and activities in this area. By contrast, the pollyanish assessment not only seems wildly out of touch with such...

Top News Story A Clash of Civilizations An Excerpt: Amir Taheri, Newsweek International:Eight years ago a pirated translation of Samuel Huntington's celebrated essay "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order" appeared in Tehran. The publisher received an order for 1,000 copies, half the print run. "We wondered who wanted them," recalls Mustafa Tunkaboni, who marketed the book. The answer came when a military truck belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps arrived to pick up the books. Among the officers who received a copy was Yahya Safavi, now a general and commander in chief of...

Top News Story BBC Iranian judges have been given approval to carry guns and to use them if they feel threatened after a judge was shot in an attack in Tehran, officials say. Mohammed Reza Aghazadeh was shot outside his home in the capital, sustaining injuries to his eye. The incident comes less than a month after another judge was killed by a gunman on a motorcycle in Tehran. Hassan Moghaddas was a prominent judge who was involved in a number of high-profile political cases involving human rights or freedom of speech and who had jailed a number of...

Top News Story Drone crashes in IranAn unmanned single-engined plane has crashed in a mountainous area of western Iran and the wreckage has been recovered by the Iranian armed forces. It was not clear if the plane was Iranian or foreign, although the influential Kayhan newspaper pointed out that "usually these sort of planes are used for spying on other countries". The reports quoted Ali Asgar Ahmadi, deputy head of security in the interior ministry, as saying the plane went down on Thursday in the Alashtar mountains near the city of Khorramabad, the capital of Lorestan province, 350 kilometres...

Top News Story 'Iran had designed N-capable cruise missiles' LONDON, August 27 (IranMania) - A prominent Iranian dissident on Friday claimed Tehran had mastered the design of nuclear capable cruise missiles secretly sold to the Islamic Republic by Ukraine and was on the verge of producing copies.Alireza Jafarzadeh said the 12 weapons were now in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and also fired off new claims about the corps' past links with disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan, according to AFP.His charges, made at a press conference in Washington, coincided with a spike in tensions in the...

Heads Up!! The worst is about to happen Alan Peters: The name “Alan Peters” is a nom de plume for a writer who was for many years involved in intelligence and security matters in Iran. He had significant access inside Iran at high levels during the rule of the Shah, until early 1979. The news item below hidden among so many other stories, fails to call enough attention to perhaps the very worst that could happen seemingly to be about to happen. Oil might soon no longer be linked to the US Dollar and move to the Euro. As...

Top News Story EU powers still want Iran nuclear talks - France By Paul CarrelPARIS (Reuters) - European powers are still keen to talk to Iran about its sensitive nuclear programme despite calling off an Aug 31. negotiating meeting, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Wednesday.Britain, France and Germany have called off next week's negotiations on proposals they made to Iran earlier this month because Tehran has resumed some nuclear work in breach of a promise to freeze it while talks lasted, France said on Tuesday.Douste-Blazy said the trio, acting on behalf of the European Union, were not...

Top News Story Europeans call off crucial atomic talks with Iran Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:07 PM BST By Paul CarrelPARIS (Reuters) - European powers have called off August 31 talks with Iran over its nuclear programme, France said on Tuesday, marking a breakdown in two years of negotiations with Tehran to halt its sensitive atomic work.French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said talks on a formal European proposal made earlier this month would not go ahead because Iran had resumed certain nuclear work in breach of a promise to freeze it while talks lasted.Iran shrugged off the cancellation,...

Top News Story IRAN: JOURNALIST SUSPENDS HUNGER STRIKETehran, 22 August (AKI) - The Iranian journalist and writer, Akbar Ganji, has suspended the hunger strike he began in prison on June 11, his wife, Massoumeh Shafii, told Adnkronos International (AKI). She confirmed the news after seeing him at the Milad hospital in the Iranian capital Tehran, where he was transferred from prison after his health worsened. Shafii did not say what led her husband to break off his hunger strike. There is speculation in Tehran that Ganji's decision could be the result of a letter from UN secretary-general Kofi Annan...

Top News Story Iranian secularist forces prepare Ahmadi-Nejad's 'welcoming' to USSMCCDI (Information Service) Aug 22, 2005 Iranian secularist opposition groups are preparing a kind of 'welcoming' ceremony for the Islamic republic's appointed president on US soil. Ahamdi-Nejad is to speak on September 14th at the UN General Assembly in New York.Groups are preparing to stage a peaceful protest rally, at the UN, on the days of September 14th and 15th. They intend to denounce, in a common voice, the presence of the Islamist president as the 'symbol of Iranian Nation' and the persistent human rights' abuses by his illegitimate...

Top News Story Iran’s Agenda for the WorldAmir Taheri   When he launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003 President George W. Bush promised to help the greater Middle East, the Muslim heartland from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, to bury a despotic past and build a democratic future.As if on cue, political elites throughout the region began to use “democracy” as a catchword. In Egypt President Hosni Mubarak declared the building democracy as the central aim of his next administration. The Lebanese launched their “Cedar Revolution” under the banner of democracy. The Saudi municipal elections were described...

Top News Story The Free World's Guess NY Sun, Eli Lake :"Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary state." This quote is from an August 1978 CIA assessment of a government five months away from being toppled by the first modern Islamic revolution. The phrase, however, could easily belong to many of the Bush administration's top analysts ... Brave leaders of Iran's democracy movement, men such as Akbar Ganji, Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, and Ahmad Batebi, should not be discouraged by the free world's recent guesswork. Read More A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on...

Top News Story Iran Made Thousands of Centrifuges, Breaking Pledge, Exiles Say Thu. 18 Aug 2005 By Alex Morales, Iran Focus: an MEK website New York - Iran has continued to produce centrifuges, which are used in the uranium enrichment process, in contravention of a November 2004 agreement with the U.K., France and Germany to suspend all such activities, the exiled opposition National Council for Resistance in Iran said. Iran this month removed United Nations seals on equipment used in uranium enrichment at its Isfahan plant, after rejecting an offer from the so-called EU-3 of technology and economic incentives...

Top News Story The military strike option against Iran Experts disagree about possible effect of US or Israeli preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. By Tom Regan| csmonitor.com Iran once again says it will resume its nuclear program, despite International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)concerns. Iran claims its interest in nuclear power is entirely for peaceful purposes. Last week US President George Bush said during an interview on Israeli TV that "all options are on the table," including a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities by US or Israeli forces, if Iran doesn't "comply with international standards." When it...

Top News Story Iranian President Coming to America Hamid Namvar - 8/18/2005 According to media reports indicate that the United States is considering an entry visa to Iran's new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend a UN meeting in New York City in mid-September. This would send a very wrong signal at a very crucial juncture to the increasingly belligerent Iran. Administration must firmly deny Ahmadinejad entry to the United States. And by all indications, the American public opinion would certainly welcome such a move. Ahmadinejad, a former senior commander of the feared terror-sponsoring Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the "Pasdaran"),...

Top News Story New-conservatives, regime crisis and political perspectives in Iran by Ardeshir Mehrdad and Mehdi Kia; August 15, 2005 In the recent presidential elections in Iran, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, an unknown conservative military commander, won. His victory was surprising as many had predicted Hashemi Rafsanjani would become Iran’s next president. Rafsanjani, perhaps the second most powerful man in the Islamic Republic, was supported by a broad coalition of reformists and pragmatist elites. The shock of this surprise victory may partly explain the crude nature of some of the analyses that followed. Even more striking is the failure to address...

Top News Story Islamic regime strengthensSMCCDI (Information Service) Aug 14, 2005 The Islamic republic regime is preparing itself for its last stand against the Iranian People and the world community. In that line the theocratic regime is hardening its position in the domestic and foreign fields by strengthening its control at all levels and placing its hardcore militiamen at key posts.Already decision has been made to back the regular police and army forces by the repressive Bassij militia and several changes have taken place in police and military commands. The new government is also adopting a much more radical...