Free Republic

In 1995, former Iranian president Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani made a little-noticed trip to the neighboring country of Georgia. He spent several hours in Tbilisi, the capital, and then instead of returning to Iran, he made a secret side trip to the breakaway region of Adjara to visit President Aslan Abashidze. The purpose of the detour was not to visit the balmy, palm-treed tourist sea port resort of Batumi on the Black Sea. His purpose was more sinister. The Iranian president was looking for black market sources of chemicals to enrich uranium for building a nuclear bomb. He found a willing...

"This trade generated as much as $70 billion for Iran, propping up the regime and its nuclear weapons program." China is reportedly using a “dark fleet” to conduct secret ship-to-ship transfers of Iranian oil in an effort to evade U.S. sanctions on Tehran’s tankers. CBS News sent a crew to scout an area roughly 80 nautical miles from Singapore and found four ship-to-ship transfers occurring; all the “dark fleet” tankers had their transponders switched off, and “clearly do not want to be identified,” the outlet reported. “Both ships have a net or something, a tarp, deployed over the stern, covering...

Iran is ready to sign a nuclear deal with certain conditions with President Donald Trump in exchange for lifting economic sanctions, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader told NBC News on Wednesday. Ali Shamkhani, a top political, military and nuclear adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is one of the most senior Iranian officials to speak publicly about the ongoing discussions. He said Iran would commit to never making nuclear weapons, getting rid of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium which can be weaponized, agree to only enrich uranium to the lower levels needed for civilian use,...

TEHRAN, July 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iran would repulse a U.S. military strike in a swift and powerful fashion, Defense Minister Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani said in remarks published Tuesday, July 23, amid U.S. hostility towards the Islamic regime. "Iran would answer in minimum time, reciprocally and in a powerful manner any military attack against its political, military, media and social bodies," Shamkhani was quoted saying by the Jam-e-Jam daily. "Any fast and short term action by the United States against the Islamic republic will receive multiple and varied responses," he warned. The Defense Minister cited a number...