Tag: iran

Across the Islamic-majority countries there has been an ongoing struggle between modernization and Islamism. Riyadh views modernization as the vehicle through which the Saudi state, at long last, can confront and defeat extremism, foster a dynamic private sector and master the looming economic challenges. The Saudi program includes:

New limits on the ability of the religious police to arrest dissidents.
Purges of extremists from the government and greater efforts to monitor their influence in security institutions.
The appointment of new religious leaders to counter Islamic extremism on theological grounds.
The transformation of the world Muslim League—a key Saudi arm for supporting Islamic movements abroad—by the appointment of a new leader and a decision to stop supporting Islamist madrassas abroad.

There’s a chance things might get better in Syria. The Kurds are doing the heavy lifting. They protect Americans. They’re pragmatic. We owe the Kurds increased solidarity. The Kurds are like a girlfriend that never gives up on you. They very well might the best shot we have at eliminating ISIS if we openly support […]

Iran threatened to shoot down two US Navy surveillance aircraft flying close to Iranian territory in the Persian Gulf over the weekend, the latest in a series of recent provocations between Iran and the US military in the region, three US defense officials with knowledge of the incident told Fox News. On Sept. 10, a […]

The U.S. Navy has rebuked him and effectively ended his once-promising career in the military. But Lt. David Nartker makes no apologies for his actions when two boats under his command strayed into Iranian waters and ended up captured by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy, Nartker defended his role […]

North Korea is convinced a nuclear arsenal is their only protection against an attempt at regime change by the U.S. This is an unstable proposition. North Korea’s leaders feed dissenters to dogs — killed a man for not clapping and another for being “sleepy.”

The Kurds should not be treated only as the brave allies to be thrown to the battle against ISIS, but also as the political allies, whose national demands should be part of any fundamental solution to the problems of Iraq and Syria.

Will all this, or even part of it, happen in the near future? Not really, and if that is the case, even the death of ‘’the Kurdish Angelina Jolie’’ will not lead to any salvation to the real Kurds. They will continue to fight, and continue to be betrayed.

A British-Iranian woman held in Iran on suspicion of being a spy while travelling with her young daughter has been sentenced to five years in prison. Richard Ratcliffe said his wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, was sentenced on “secret charges” by a revolutionary court. He says he learned of his wife’s sentence when she called him from prison. The five-year […]

He equated our backing of both the rebels and the Kurds as a major contributor to the “mess.” But we all know it goes deeper, further back and is more complex than that.

Amid new revelations that the U.S. actually forked over $1.7 billion to Iran in foreign hard currency around the time four American prisoners were released – far more than the $400 million initially reported – the Obama administration is facing renewed pressure from Congress to explain the payment that Republicans have called “ransom.” With Congress […]

A formerly classified US policy paper found within Hillary Clinton’s emails (archived byWikiLeaks), promoting the forceful overthrow of Assad as “a massive boon to Israel’s security”, and as a way to start a war with Iran.
It appears that the Clinton email quoted below was sent in April 2012 (the email’s internal date upon release is an error)

Placing visas on the open market for whoever can afford them without knowing or caring who you are selling to has become a persistent problem in Panama.

A frequent critic of the Iran nuclear deal said Thursday that the United States and its negotiating partners have allowed Tehran to exceed agreed-upon caps for stockpiles of enriched uranium and other materials. David Albright, the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said key “exemptions” to the deal’s limits were […]