Free Republic

Power struggle at the head of the ruling regime in Iran Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, understanding the structure of the ruling system in Iran and the decision-making mechanism, at times, has sometimes been challenging and difficult to understand and analyze. Although the "Vali-Faghih or the Supreme Leader" is at the top of the system's pyramid of power, the president holds the executive power. Still, the order of decision-making institutions in Iran is not clear, and this has long led to a dispute over authority between leaders of the regime who are at the center of its influence and...

Days ago into last week there were widespread rumors spreading on Mideast social media of the severe health decline of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The persistent rumors ranged from saying he was in a coma even to some claiming his death.But Khamenei put the unfounded speculation to rest after on Wednesday morning he appeared at an event marking the first anniversary of the death of IRGC Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani. He hasn't made a public appearance in three weeks.But more importantly he emerged to give final high level backing to prior statements of Iranian leaders, most notably President...

Unconfirmed reports from Iran say the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, returned his soul to his maker. According to the same reports, an official announcement will be made only after the transfer of powers to his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, are completed. Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei, 81, was the supreme leader of Iran since 1989. He previously served as the president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the longest serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Reports on Saturday suggested that...

Unable to deal with Iran’s growing poverty, economic crisis, and the COVID-19 epidemic that has ravaged the country, the regime’s Supreme Leader has opted to increase suppression to intimidate Iranians into silence and prevent protests. In their Friday sermons, Khamenei’s representatives lashed out against civil liberties, including “lack of hijab” and “dog walking”, once again signaling where the regime’s priorities lie. Ahmad Alamolhoda, Khamenei’s representative in the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi, and head of Mashhad Friday prayers said Khamenei had ordered the police to crack down on civil liberties. “According to an order issued by the Commander in Chief...

SENATOR Ted Cruz is calling for a criminal investigation into Twitter for potentially "violating US sanctions against Iran." Cruz asked for the investigation in a letter to the Justice and Treasury departments on Friday. In February, Cruz wrote a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ask him to stop providing social media services to Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Now, the senator is calling on Attorney General William Barr and Secretary Steve Mnuchin to "take action." In Friday's letter, Cruz wrote: "I believe that the primary goal of (the International Emergency Economic...

From the early days of Iranian Revolution four decades ago, the Iranian regime has tried to spread its theocratic doctrine to the rest of the Middle East. The regime has, in the process, successfully made substantial number of Iraqi and Lebanese ‘civilians’ and ‘armed groups’ its core external support bases. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who spearheads the regime, had maintained his charm among these external civilian and armed support bases for almost three and a half decade. However, the situation has been changing in the Middle East for last half a decade and the Iranian regime appears to...

Four US Senators, including Ted Cruz, penned a letter on February 6 to Jack Dorsey asking him to ban Iranian leadership from using Twitter as part of the US sanctions against Iran. Republican senators led by Ted Cruz in a letter Thursday suggested Twitter may be violating U.S. sanctions by letting Iranian leaders maintain accounts, which they asked company CEO Jack Dorsey to ban. The big picture: Twitter has become a major political target for Cruz and other Republicans, who claim the company and other Silicon Valley giants are biased against conservatives and the Trump administration. "While the First Amendment...

Iran’s supreme leader said President Donald Trump is a “clown” who only pretends to support the Iranian people, as he addressed Friday prayers In Tehran for the first time since 2012. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Trump will “push a poisonous dagger” into the nation’s back. He said the outpouring of grief at the funeral for Iran’s top general, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike earlier this month, shows that Iranians support the Islamic Republic.

Since December 2017, deeply aggrieved Iranian citizens have publicly denounced two blatantly linked injustices perpetrated by the corrupt ayatollah regime: the clerical dictatorship's hideous corruption and Iran's acute economic deterioration. Iran's Islamic revolutionary dictatorship is a case study in repeated failure, incompetence, corruption and mass murder. I estimate that since 1990, I've written over two dozen essays examining the failed Iranian regime's murderous Islamic global revolution, the mass domestic Iranian disappointment with the regime's governance and the Iranian public's evident disgust with governmental corruption. The internet documents my claim. If your mainstream media sources didn't notice Iran's domestic discord, henceforth...

On Saturday, protesters with Iran's MEK Freedom Movement took to the streets in Tehran to protest after Iran's government admitted having shot down a Ukrainian plane by mistake, killing 176 people on board. Iran's government claimed that the U.S. airstrike killing Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani had united the country, but the protests disproved that narrative."Protests erupt against the Revolutionary Guards at Amir-Kabir University in Tehran due to authorities' incompetence and negligence after the recent plane crash that killed more than 176 people," Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad reported on Twitter. "Some people had claimed Iranians were united after [Soleimani]'s death....

‘Whistleblower’ calls out John Kerry, says he ‘knows for fact’ Obama admin sent multiple letters directly to Soleimani Middle East expert Michael Doran slammed former Secretary of State John Kerry in a series of tweets exposing the Obama administration’s dealings with Iran. “I must become a whistleblower,” Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute specializing in Middle East security issues, tweeted Friday in response to a self-serving opinion piece by Kerry published by The New York Times. Doran called out Kerry for his op-ed and the “ludicrous and reckless contention” that “diplomacy” with Iran and the nuclear deal negotiated...

Over the last three years, these lunatics have tried to fake it, but their mask is off. We have watched them express outright hate for the Founding Fathers, the police, law and order, the rule of law, the Constitution, election results, and, most recently, the electoral college. When I thought they had reached their wits ends, they put the pedal to the metal with their recent reaction to the killing of Iran’s top military General Qasem Soleimani. I never thought I would see the day when Americans would be so full of hate toward their own country that they would...

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s elite military force, is sending assets to infiltrate the United States and Europe at the direction of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to recent Farsi-language comments from an Iranian military leader. The IRGC “will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” according to the Iranian military commander, who said that these forces would operate with the goal of bolstering Iran’s hardline regime and thwarting potential plots against the Islamic Republic. “The whole world should know that the IRGC will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” Salar Abnoush, deputy coordinator...

It is hard to understand Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei’s blunder in attacking the US Embassy in Baghdad. He either believed Trump was weakened by his impeachment, as western liberal Media breathlessly and continuously reported, or he might have been misled by John Kerry’s incompetent advice (apparently Kerry met again with Khamenei’s emissaries in Paris just few weeks ago). Whatever the reasons, his goal of triggering a limited war with America to rally his people around the regime has failed miserably. (my emphasis.)

Khamenei, now you know how the families of soldiers who died fighting in the Middle East felt when their loved ones died trying to stop the evil Soleimani was producing. Now you understand the grief. Yet, your attitude remains unchanged. It is only YOUR sorrow that matters, damn all of the rest. Every time you want to cry out, remember the families of soldiers here whose loved ones died. Think of that, you monster.

On January 3, 2020, near Baghdad's airport, a U.S. air raid targeted Qasem Soleimani, commander of Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (“IRGC’s”) terrorist arm. He was killed instantly. To understand how important this is, one needs to understand who Qasem Soleimani (1957-2020) was. Soleimani, a one-time construction worker and weightlifter, joined the IRGC after the 1979 revolution and soon headed one of the IRGC’s main cadres. Khomeini assigned Soleimani to suppress a Kurdish movement in Mahabad, Western Azerbaijan. Soleimani's brutality earned him command over a Quds Guard Corps unit in Kerman. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) gave Soleimani opportunities...

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approved the attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, a U.S. government official told CBS, adding that the approval had been granted on the condition that Iran’s involvement could be denied.

Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan is coming to Washington, DC, on May 16 loaded for bear.  He has an ambitious agenda and apparently feels he can achieve it all because he holds “trump” cards against the President of the United States. Erdogan and his proxies have publicly said they want to convince the United States to jettison its budding alliance with the Syrian Democratic Union (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish group that has become the tip of the spear in the fight against ISIS in Syria. On this point, they will encounter resistance...

… “The word and even the signature of the Americans cannot be relied upon, so negotiations with America are of no avail,” Khamenei said in a meeting with Foreign Ministry officials, adding that negotiations with Washington would be an “obvious mistake”, according to his official website. …

A top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that Iran would immediately withdraw its “military advisers” from Syria and Iraq only if their governments wanted it to. “Iran and Russia’s presence in Syria will continue to protect the country against terrorist groups and America’s aggression,” said the adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, in a conference in Moscow, according to Reuters. “We will immediately leave if Iraqi and Syrian governments want it, not because of Israel and America’s pressure,” he stressed. Iran and Russia back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war. Iran has been...