Free Republic

With little fanfare, another taboo in U.S.-Iran relations has shattered. Jim Slattery, a former six-term Democratic Congressman from Kansas, late last year became the first former or current American legislator to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Tehran to attend a conference on countering violent extremism, Slattery encountered a largely friendly reception from both officials and ordinary Iranians and came back equipped to present a more realistic and upbeat depiction of Iranians than is usually found on Capitol Hill. Speaking Monday at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Slattery conceded that there are elements in Iran that still oppose any...

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has urged Western youth to examine Islam for themselves rather than swallow prejudiced views, in a message posted on his Twitter account. “The recent events in France and similar ones in some other Western countries have convinced me to directly talk to you about them,” he wrote in reference to the January 7-9 jihadist attacks in Paris that left 17 dead. “Many attempts have been made over the past two decades, almost since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great religion in the seat of a horrifying enemy,” Khamenei said of...

Iran’s Supreme Leader has found the reason for socio-economic problems in the United States. In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed that the Americans’ problems are due to Israel’s “domination” of the United States’ government. “Brutal treatment of black ppl isn’t indeed the only anti-human rights act by US govt; look at US’s green light to #Israel’s crimes.#Ferguson,” read one tweet. “The day when American nation realize their socioeconomic problems stem from domination of #Israel over their govt, what’ll happen? #Ferguson,” Khamenei wrote in another one. …

By/Major Garrett/CBS News/November 6, 2014, 9:23 PM Obama writes private letter to Iranian leader WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials confirm President Obama sent a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in mid-October, as first reported in the Wall Street Journal. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest would neither confirm nor deny the letter's existence. "I'm not in a position to discuss private correspondence between the president and any world leader," Earnest said Thursday. When asked about secret negotiations with Khamenei, Iran's top political and religious leader, Earnest said the White House "also" conducts private briefings with key members of Congress...

President Barak Obama wrote a secret letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei two weeks ago expressing a mutual interest in battling ISIS, according to a recent report. The letter indicated that the US would be interested in cooperating with Iran against the Islamic State with the condition that Tehran works to reach a comprehensive agreement with the P5+1 by the Nov. 24 deadline.

Never mind the negotiations with Iran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program. Far more urgent developments are afoot. While the foreign ministers were busily counting how many centrifuges could spin in Iranian facilities, President Obama and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have arranged a working relationship throughout the Middle East that effectively puts American policy at the service of Iran.Long the goal of Obama, who sent a private emissary to Tehran as early as the 2008 election campaign to tell the Khamenei regime he wanted to be their friend, there is now a de facto alliance between the two...

Fars, the semi-official press agency of Iran, has reported that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told the visiting Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Movement, Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, in Tehran on Thursday, "The enemy [Israel] should feel the same worries in the West Bank as it does in Gaza." The comments came at the same meeting in which Shalah praised Iran's own role in the conflict. “The Islamic Republic and the Iranian people are proud of your [Islamic Jihad’s] ‘victory’ and resistance [in Gaza], and hope that the back-to-back ‘triumphs’ of resistance groups will continue until final victory,” Iran's Supreme...

Iran’s supreme leader underwent prostate surgery on Monday and was recovering at a government hospital in Tehran, state media said in a rare report on the state of health of the country’s top cleric. The 75-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters and has been Iran’s top leader since 1989, was reported to be in “good condition” and his doctors said he was resting after the surgery. According to a Twitter account that routinely posts on Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani visited the supreme leader in hospital after the procedure. …

“Moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has bragged of his regime’s role in aiding Hamas’s terror war against Israel, even as Iran is locked in a final round of negotiations with world powers over its nuclear program. Speaking to the Arabic-language news source Al Meyadeen, Rouhani claimed the “victory” of Gaza in Operation Protective Edge was only possible thanks to Iranian aid, reports Channel 10. Rouhani has been presented to the world as a “moderate” following his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but many have warned that his “charm offensive” has been even more dangerous given the cover it provides for Iran’s ongoing...

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday called Israel a “rabid dog” for its attacks on Gaza, and urged Muslims to arm Palestinians to enable them to counter what he termed genocide. […] In a speech marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Khamenei criticized the United States and European countries for what he said were their efforts to limit the military capacity of Palestinian fighters in the enclave. Of Israel, he said: “This rabid dog, this rapacious wolf, has attacked innocent people and humanity must show a reaction. This is genocide, a catastrophe of historical...

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged Palestinian Arabs on Wednesday to keep fighting Israel, according to AFP. “The only way to deal with this savage regime is to continue resistance and armed struggle and extend it to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria -ed.),” the official IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei as saying. Iran, which does not recognize Israel, is a supporter of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups that have been at the forefront of the fighting in Gaza. …

Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday he is against US intervention in neighboring Iraq, where Islamic extremists and Sunni militants opposed to Tehran have seized a number of towns and cities, the official IRNA news agency reported. "We strongly oppose the intervention of the U.S. and others in the domestic affairs of Iraq," Khamenei was quoted as saying, in his first reaction to the crisis. "The main dispute in Iraq is between those who want Iraq to join the U.S. camp and those who seek an independent Iraq," said Khamenei, who has the final say over government policies....

Standing on a podium amid banners boasting “America Cannot Do a Damn Thing,” Iran’s supreme leader said Wednesday that President Obama no longer has the guts for battle. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proclaimed in a Tehran taunting speech that “military attack is not a priority for Americans now.” “They realize that military attacks are as dangerous or even more dangerous for the assaulting country as they are for the country attacked,” the ayatollah said. The 74-year-old Shiite Muslim cleric was responding to Obama’s West Point commencement speech last week in which the president said every global threat does not justify a...

Shirin Ebadi, a former Iranian judge who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 but who now lives in the UK, believes that if she returned to Tehran “Iranian people would welcome me, but the intelligence services would come to arrest me with handcuffs.” Asked by EUobserver if Iran would hang her, she said: “I don’t know.” Her statement, in Brussels last Thursday (13 March), shows how little she thinks Iran has changed despite the election of President Hassan Rohani, a moderate, and despite the warming up in EU-Iran ties. […] According to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, an Iranian NGO,...

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has translated and posted to the internet a video of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speech from last week, during which he referred to the United States as “Satan.” During the speech, Khamenei claims that the United States is “the greatest violator of human rights in the world” and the crowd responds by chanting, “Death to America!” …

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa (religious edict) banning online chatting between unrelated men and women, Iranian media reported on Monday, according to Al Arabiya. Ironically, Khamenei’s ruling came a day after Iran’s Foreign Minister touted his country as a “model for democracy” in the region. “Given the immorality that often applies to this, it is not permitted,” the Supreme Leader responded to a question posted to his website on the issue. The ruling came days after Iranian authorities blocked WeChat, a popular messaging application that enables smart phone users to access online social networks. …

SNIPPET: "An Argentine prosecutor has accused Iran of trying to infiltrate countries in Latin America to sponsor and carry out "terrorist activities". Alberto Nisman said Iran was attempting to set up intelligence-gathering stations in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and other countries in the region. Mr Nisman is investigating a bomb attack that killed 85 people in a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in 1994." SNIPPET: ""I legally accuse Iran of infiltrating several South American countries to install intelligence stations - in other words espionage bases - destined to commit, encourage and sponsor terror attacks like the one that took place against...

Iran’s Supreme Leader tops the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s (SWC) “Top Ten Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel List” for 2013. The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Monday that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was placed at the top of the list “because of his continuous calls for Israel’s annihilation even during the announcement of the interim nuclear agreement.” The annual list released by the center exposes Jew-hatred by government leaders, movements, and cultural elites who are influential, have impact, and wield real power. …

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei marked Christmas Day with social media messages tying Jesus into political rhetoric directed at the United States. “If Christ were among us today, he would not spare even a single moment to fight the leaders of despotism and global arrogance,” he said on Facebook, using the Islamic Republic’s favored term for America. […] Seldom does a key Christian holiday pass without some Muslim leader making such assertions. The Qur’an depicts Jesus as one of many biblical prophets, but rejects his divinity (teaching that those who believe otherwise are deluded and cursed by Allah) and...

When protests broke out in Syria in late 2011, Russia hoped for a short, nasty war as a matter of Russian national interest -- just enough to put the Muslim Brotherhood and assorted Sunnis in their place. Violence from its own Sunni Muslim population has plagued Russia for decades. Saudi Arabia took over the defeated nationalist Chechen rebellion in the late 1990s, infusing it with money and Islamist overtones, prompting the second Chechen war. More recently, there has been open fighting and rioting in Moscow between Muslims and Slavs. Iran counted on a short war as well -- something to...