Free Republic

RUSH; Big news from the Middle East about the Iran deal. It turns out that we were negotiating with the Iranians before Kerry was secretary of state. We were negotiating with the Iranians before the election of the "moderate" Rouhani. We were negotiating an Iranian nuke deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when nobody knew what was happening. The Regime was telling us that they couldn't do anything 'cause Ahmadinejad was such a radical extremist goofball. We had to wait for a "moderate" to win, which was Rouhani, and after he did, that's when we got serious. It turns out none of...

Tehran, 17 Jan. (AKI) - One of the five Iranians arrested last week by the US army in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil is wanted in Austria in connection with the assassination of Kurdish leader Andol Rahman Ghassemlu in 1989. Mahommad Jaafari Sharoudi was one of five Iranian officials detained last week in the Kurdish-controlled city on charges of being connected to a faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran, that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. Abdol Rahman Ghassemlu, the historic leader of Iranian Kurds, was killed in an apartment in the outskirts of the Austrian capital...

The current Sheriff is Scott Israel; he was elected to office in November 2012. As Sheriff, Israel has made it a point to reach out to diverse crowds, including those who could be considered enemies of the U.S. and her allies. Broward Sheriff Scott Israel’s 2015 radical Muslim tour began this past January, when he posed for photos with Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout and a member of Zakkout’s Miami-based AMANA group at a local mosque. Zakkout is a big supporter of Hamas. On his Facebook page, one can find Hamas logos and photos of Hamas militants and leaders, including Hamas founders Ahmed Yassin and...

The Governor of the state, Jay Nixon, has declared a state of emergency and plans to mobilize the National Guard in anticipation of an imminent grand jury announcement on the Michael Brown case. Tensions are high in the area, as residents, businesses and police brace themselves for another round of rioting in the mainly black suburb of St. Louis. Their fears are well founded, as seasoned protest organizers are currently training activists to close in on and “shut down” the business district of nearby Clayton on the first business day after the grand jury goes public. Michael McPhearson The key...

On April 16, the United Muslim-Christian Forum (UMCF) held an interfaith event in Owego, New York, featuring Christian and Muslim speakers, including the mayor of the town. Its Web site proudly hosts a photo of Binghamton Mayor Matthew T. Ryan holding a UMCF sign. Far from the model of tolerance it casts itself as, the UMCF is a front for an anti-Semitic, Islamic extremist group named Muslims of the Americas (MOA), and the keynote speaker warned that Allah will destroy whoever supports Koran burnings, and possibly the entire country. The MOA was exposed in the Christian Action Network’s (CAN) 2009...

NEW YORK (CNN) – President Obama spoke Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly as he tackles a range of thorny international issues with his counterparts. Obama said Iran and North Korea “must be held accountable” if they continue to ignore international nuclear weapons treaties. Iran recently reiterated its unwillingness to give up its nuclear program, which the United States and other Western nations fear is being used to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its program is strictly for civilian power. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said she didn’t expect a direct meeting between Obama and Iran’s president, Mahmoud...

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has challenged his successor, Hassan Rouhani, to a debate intended to defend his eight-year record in office, reports the British Telegraph. In his first political intervention since stepping down last August, the former president expressed outrage at a recent televised speech in which Rouhani took aim at Ahmadinejad’s stewardship of Iran’s economy. Rouhani said that his predecessor had presided over “unprecedented stagflation” in an address made to mark his own administration's first 100 days at the helm. During Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Iran’s currency plummeted to an all-time low as the country faced a growing shortage of...

IRGC and the spiritual vacuum of Latin American leftists The following is a glimpse of the kind of thing I often see while researching the activities of the IRGC (writ large) in Latin America. Communism fails to provide for the spiritual needs of leftwing political activists, and the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to have done a pretty good job of inserting themselves and the Khomeinist version of Shiism into that void. (Either that or the IRI is throwing lots of money around and the leftists are whores, which is certainly possible, but for the moment I'll take the more...

Iran's hunt for its next animal astronaut may turn to the distinctive and locally named Persian cat, an official said Monday, in another possible step by the country's ambitious aerospace program that has also raised Western concerns about spillover military applications. **SNIP** Earlier this year, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wanted to be Iran's first astronaut.

Iran’s outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said 5,000 new centrifuges are ready to start operating at the country’s nuclear facilities. These are in addition to the 12,000 centrifuges already in operation. “12,000 centrifuge machines are now running in our nuclear sites and 5,000 new centrifuges are ready to start operation,” the hardline president told the country’s IRIB1 TV. … The West fears Iran is making steady progress towards nuclear weapons while the country insists its uranium enrichment was only for peaceful purposes. Meanwhile, a US think tank has noted that Iran may be able to achieve weapons-grade uranium by mid-2014....

“An Iranian government spokesman has said that outgoing President Mahmud Ahmadinejad will return with the Hidden Imam, who according to Shi’ite belief went into hiding in the 10th century and will reappear to bring justice to Earth,” reports Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “God willing, with the manifestation of Imam Mehdi, Ahmadinejad will also return and work for the establishment of pure Islam,” spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by Iranian news agencies. “Ahmadinejad and his close aides have been criticized in Iran over their repeated references to Mahdi and signs of his imminent coming,” reports RFE/RL. “Ahmadinejad came...

Now the Iranian constitution requires a new president to be elected, and Rafsanjani’s entry into the contest radically alters what was previously seen as a contest between rival conservative groups. Not that Rafsanjani currently is more than a relative moderate – currently, because in his time he has veered sharply from side to side across Iran’s political spectrum; and relatively moderate because, although he now favours a domestic free market, privatization of state-owned industries, and a moderate position internationally, he is still sought by the Argentinian government for ordering the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in...

After accompanying his former chief of staff to register for June’s presidential vote, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may face punishment if charged with breaking electoral rules. On Sunday, the country’s electoral watchdog attracted worldwide media attention after pointing out Ahmadinejad may face a punishment of “74 lashes” for accompanying and appearing to endorse election entrant Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie.

Reports have claimed that the Iranian President was arrested this week and warned against releasing information which could prove damaging to the country's Islamic regime. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was allegedly held for seven hours by the Revolutionary Guard on Monday and told to back down with claims that the regime defrauded voters at the last general election and allegations of fraud against political rivals. According to WND.com, the President was returning from a book fair in Tehran when his security advisor was informed that he was requested to appear at the Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei's office on...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was arrested and held for seven hours Monday and warned to keep his mouth shut about matters detrimental to the Islamic regime before he was released, according to a source within the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence unit.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister on Monday said that Iran is steadily edging closer to nuclear weapons capability but has not yet reached the "red line" he drew in a speech to the United Nations last fall. Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his assessment as Israel took delivery of the fifth of six advanced submarines it has ordered from Germany. The "Dolphin" class vessels are believed to be capable of carrying missiles with nuclear warheads and could play an important role in any future conflict between Israel and Iran. In Iran, an influential former president appeared to be trying to lower...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Senior aides to Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi made a rare visit to Tehran for talks with Iran on an Islamic initiative to seek a peaceful solution to Syria's civil war, the two sides said on Sunday. Tehran is Syria's closest ally and has provided money, weapons, intelligence and training for President Bashar al-Assad's forces, while Egypt has given political support to the opposition Syrian National Coalition fighting to oust him. Mursi's foreign affairs adviser Essam Haddad and his chief-of-staff Rifaa El-Tahtawy met Iranian officials in a follow-up to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's groundbreaking visit to Cairo in...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday defended his country’s controversial nuclear program while on a tour of West Africa, arguing that Tehran has no use for an atomic bomb. Speaking during a visit to Benin, the first stop on a three-nation tour, Ahmadinejad called nuclear energy a “divine gift” providing affordable electricity. … “We don’t need an atomic bomb. … And besides, it is not atomic bombs that threaten the world, but Western morals and culture declining in values.” …

It was the shot that was almost heard around the world. In September 2006, a US Secret Service Agent fired off a shotgun blast just as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was loading his motorcade at the InterContinental Hotel during a UN General Assembly meeting in New York—apparently by mistake. The incident is revealed in a short book excerpt from Marc Ambinder and DB Grady's Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry, published at the Atlantic today. The agent was adjusting a side-mounted shotgun on the motorcade, when he accidentally discharged it. "Everyone just stopped," one official recalls. "The Iranians looked at us...

Iran launched a domestically built destroyer in the Caspian Sea on Sunday, its first deployment of a major warship in the oil-rich region, state TV reported. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the guided missile destroyer Jamaran-2 in the port city of Anzali, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of Tehran. He said the deployment aimed to bolster peace and friendship in the region. "The destroyer is there to meet those who want to jeopardize the security of surrounding nations," he said, without elaborating.....