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Iran’s parliament has approved fast tracking debate on a bill that seeks to sue the U.S. for its involvement in the 1953 coup that overthrew the country’s democratically elected prime minister. … New declassified documents revealed recently offer more details of how the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh 60 years ago. …

In Iran, like the rest of the Middle East, nightly soap operas have become a popular ritual for the month of Ramadan. The idea is that those who fast from dawn to dusk might be too exhausted for late night outings and appreciate some home entertainment. Iran’s state-owned broadcast company spends a lavish budget each year commissioning famous actors and directors to produce several Ramadan specials for each of its channels. These soap operas compete for viewers offering everything from family dramas to love stories and comedy. But it turns out that this year’s surprise Ramadan hit is not a...

Americans were stunned on October 11 when the Justice Department unsealed its complaint against Mansour Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old used-car dealer from Corpus Christi now in federal custody, and Ali Gholam Shakuri, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force. Shakuri remains inside Iran. The pair have been charged with conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel Al-Jubeir. As disclosed by the Treasury Department, the plot was coordinated by Arbabsiar’s cousin, Abdul Reza Shahlai, a top Quds Force functionary whom the Treasury designated in 2008 as one of several “individuals and entities fueling violence in Iraq.” Shahlai was...

Despite repeated, self-serving claims by Obama officials that the Administration did everything it could to head off and then respond appropriately to the violence against American facilities in Libya and Egypt last week, their blunders in policy, intelligence and security illustrates an incompetence every bit as profound as exhibited by the administration of Jimmy Carter in Iran 33 years ago. It appears nothing has been learned in more than three decades; despite significant gains in technology available to the U.S. government during those intervening years. In 1979, the Carter Administration precipitously abandoned the Shah of Iran, Washington’s long-time and loyal...

Iran makes frequent announcements about the growth and modernization of its submarine force. The latest press release reveals that Iran is beginning to develop a nuclear powered submarine. On a more substantial level, last December they announced they had put another three of their Ghadir class submarines into service. While the nuclear powered sub project is a mirage, the Ghadir is real, as there are 19 of them in service. What Iran does not issue press releases about is the stuff that doesn't work. Take, for example, the 400 ton Nahang class sub. This was to be the successor to...

Jimmy Carter - Mass Murderer Pravda 16.05.2012 Boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere. - Tiberius By John Fleming   ... Jimmy Carter affects a superficial appearance of amiability and since leaving the White House, besides his well-known work for Habitat for Humanity, he has espoused time and again humanitarian causes. He has been appointed a diplomatic plenipotentiary time and again, especially under Clinton, and he made a well-publicized trip to Cuba and met Fidel Castro recently, where he, without mentioning the repression under corporate monopoly capitalism, in Georgia and everywhere else in the U.S., chided Castro in a would-be...

The origins of the conflict between Iran and the U.S. go back decades. To understand them is to get a better idea of how we got here. At the start of Eisenhower's presidency, in 1952, Iran was a country barely removed from the middle ages. The famed General H. Norman Schwarzkopf's father, (who, after retiring from the New Jersey State Police, was best for a radio "gang-busters" show he did,) had been hired by the Shah to build an Iranian national police force- the first successful attempt to even nudge Iran towards the 20th century. Illiteracy was rampant; poverty was...

Mideast: In his first-ever condemnation of another Arab state, Saudi King Abdullah has taken Syria to task for the atrocities it has committed on its own citizens. And where was the U.S.? Leading from behind, of course. The Saudi king startled the world over the weekend by blasting dictator Bashar al-Assad and recalling his ambassador after Syria's massacre of democracy protestors during the holy month of Ramadan. "Stop the killing machine," Abdullah demanded in a statement read Sunday on Al-Arabiya satellite television. "What's happening in Syria is not acceptable to Saudi Arabia." Within hours, Bahrain and Kuwait followed, and the...

The Egyptian daily Al-Yawm Al-Sab'a reported that for the first time in 30 years, Egyptian authorities prevented Farah Diba, the wife of the late ousted Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, from visiting his grave in Cairo on the anniversary of his death. The daily estimated that the reason for preventing her from attending is her association with the Mubarak regime. The Iranian website Asr-e Iran claimed that this move is a positive message from Cairo to Tehran. (Source: Al-Yawm Al-Sab'a (Egypt), Asr-e Iran (Iran), July 27, 2011.)

Does anyone know anything about the Iranian Royal Family? Members, extended family, that sort of thing?

The turmoil in Egypt is markedly similar to the revolution that gripped Iran 33 years ago. Egypt may be to Mr. Obama what Iran was to Mr. Carter. President Carter’s emphasis on human rights in foreign policy set the stage for the 1979 revolt in Iran. Like Mr. Obama, Mr. Carter adopted a tone of moral superiority to the policies that had preceded him. When small-scale demonstrations began to break out in Iran in the fall of 1977, the State Department simply chastised the Shah’s government, which had been a firm U.S. ally, to get ahead of reform or get...

It would make sense to support the protesters in Egypt if a free and open democracy were in the works. It’s not. None of the potential outcomes are good, some are just more horrible than others. A negotiated resolution will create a government too weak to stand up to Islamic terrorists. We’ll end up with a scenario in which the Muslim Brotherhood emerges as a legitimate political faction. A complete collapse of Mubarak and his regime creates a power vacuum that history tells us will be immediately filled by those most dedicated to seizing power by force and with the...

Prince Alireza Pahlavi, the younger son of the late Shah of Iran, will be cremated and his remains released into the Caspian Sea, his brother said on Wednesday. Pahlavi, 44, shot himself to death in Boston on Tuesday after what was described as a long struggle with depression. Prince Reza Pahlavi, the Shah's older son, said there was a worldwide outpouring of support for his family's loss.

The son of the deposed Shah of Iran and an heir to the ancient throne of Persia committed suicide early yesterday in his South End brownstone — despondent over the misfortunes his country and his family have suffered, a statement from his family said. A gracious and unassuming man, Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi, 44, lived on West Newton Street for at least four years, where neighbors whispered about his royal lineage and expensive cars and clothes. Pahlavi’s family released a statement mourning his death and calling it a suicide. The district attorney’s office said Pahlavi died of a self-inflicted gunshot...

BOSTON -The youngest son of the late shah of Iran has been found dead of an apparent suicide at his home in Boston. Reza Pahlavi, the shah's oldest son, announced the death on his website Tuesday. Pahlavi says his 44-year-old brother, former Iranian prince Alireza Pahlavi, had "struggled for years to overcome his sorrow." Police say they found a man dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound shortly after 2 a.m. Tuesday at a home in Boston's South End neighborhood.

It is with immense grief that we would like to inform our compatriots of the passing away of Prince Alireza Pahlavi. Like millions of young Iranians, he too was deeply disturbed by all the ills fallen upon his beloved homeland, as well as carrying the burden of losing a father and a sister in his young life. Although he struggled for years to overcome his sorrow, he finally succumbed, and during the night of the 4th of January 2011, in his Boston residence, took his own life, plunging his family and friends into great sorrow. Once again, we are joined...

A nationwide alert has been issued for 17 members of the Afghan military who have gone AWOL from a Texas Air Force base where foreign military officers who are training to become pilots are taught English, FoxNews.com has learned. The Afghan officers and enlisted men have security badges that give them access to secure U.S. defense installations, according to the lookout bulletin, "Afghan Military Deserters in CONUS [Continental U.S.]," issued by Naval Criminal Investigative Service in Dallas, and obtained by FoxNews.com. The Afghans were attending the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The DLI program teaches...

A Muslim protester who daubed a war memorial with graffiti glorifying Osama Bin Laden and proclaiming 'Islam will dominate the world' walked free from court after prosecutors ruled his actions were not motivated by religion. Tohseef Shah, 21, could have faced a tougher sentence if the court had accepted that the insults - which included a threat to kill the Prime Minister - were inspired by religious hatred. But - citing a loophole in the law - the Crown Prosecution Service chose not to charge him with that offence and he escaped with only a two-year conditional discharge and an...

Scene from 2001 movie 'Snatch,' in which robbers disguised themselves in Hasidic garb.'Robber' was caught on surveillance camera Jewelry heist was as phony as the robbers' beards. Two Diamond District jewelers were busted for hiring gunmen to dress as Hasidic Jews, don fake beards and fake a store robbery so the owners could collect insurance money, cops said Tuesday. Atul Shah, 48, and Mahaveer Kankariya, 43, were charged with directing the heist of their W. 46 St. store - ripping off a scene from Guy Ritchie's film "Snatch" in the process. Just like in the 2001 flick, the two gunmen...

Britain despatched an undercover diplomat on a covert mission to the Bahamas to convince the deposed Shah of Iran not to seek to settle in the UK. The revelation comes in official archive documents made public 30 years after they were written. The 1979 papers reveal that the British government was very concerned that Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, then in exile, would seek to live in England. But Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was upset she could not help the Shah. Mrs Thatcher told her foreign minister she was "deeply unhappy" not to be able to offer refuge to the Shah...