Free Republic

Top News Story Again the MSM ignores: Massive Iranian defiance of the Islamic Regime. Iran Press News reported that the Iranian regime failed to stop ancient Persian festival & New Year celebrations tonight which the regime considers to be religiously prohibited or unclean.Photos of the festival of fire celebrations in Tehran.SMCCDI reported that Islamic regime's security forces attacked Iranian celebrators/demonstrators in several cities by beating brutally women and especially young kids using clubs, chains and even knives have been used by foreign speaking militiamen.SMCCDI reported that an increasing number of Iranians went into most Iranian into the streets in...

Top News Story UN Security Council deadlocked on Iran? Yahoo News reported that the five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council are deadlocked over the best way to pressure Iran. China's Ambassador Wang Guangya told The Associated Press as he left the meeting. "I think they want to be too tough."   Iran speeds towards a confrontation with the UN. The New York Times reported that Iran has decided to shift course and confront the United Nations head-on. Ahmadinejad portrayed that position not as obstinate or rigid but as a reflection of strength. "We know well that a...

Top News Story Tehran's secret underground bunkers. The Telegraph reported that Iran's leaders have built a secret underground emergency command centre in Teheran as they prepare for a confrontation with the West.   Iranians claim US wants peace talks. US denies. The Times reported that a senior Iranian intelligence official claimed to have a letter in Persian purportedly signed by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador in Baghdad, inviting Iranian representatives to Iraq for talks. Khalilzad denied the report.   Iran threatens to use the oil weapon, again. Canada.com reported that Iran threatened to use oil as a weapon if...

Top News Story CNN TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran will not consider a proposal by Moscow to enrich uranium on Russian soil and ship it to Tehran if it means the country must cease all enrichment activity on its own soil, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Sunday Iran has rejected a similar proposal in the past, and the latest rejection showed mounting international pressure has not changed the government's stance. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi told journalist Shirzad Bozorgmehr that his country would like to resolve its dispute with the international community "through dialogue" but insisted...

Top News Story Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran threatened Saturday to use oil as a weapon if the UN Security Council imposes sanctions over its nuclear program. The country's interior minister raised the possibility of using Iran's own oil and gas supplies and its position on a vital Persian Gulf oil route as weapons in the international standoff. "If (they) politicize our nuclear case, we will use any means. We are rich in energy resources. We have control over the biggest and the most sensitive energy route of the world," Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi was quoted as saying...

Top News Story Poll: Iranian Support for nuclear technology weakening. Countdown reported on a confidential poll in Iran that claimed, 69% of the Iranians do not recognize the nuclear issue a matter of national aspiration and 86% do not believe that nuclear technology is worth a military conflict.   US Iran Policy U.S. Department of State published the congressional testimony of R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, where he outlined the long overdue US policy toward Iran.Reuters reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran is probably the No. 1 challenge to the United States.U.S. Department...

Top News Story Iran now faces the UN Security Council. BBC News reported that Iran's nuclear program is being forwarded to the UN Security Council for consideration of possible punitive action.Reuters reported that the U.N. S.C. is expected to meet on Iran next week.Foreign & Commonwealth Office published a Statement on Iran on Behalf of France, Germany and The UK to the IAEA.   Iran threatens the US in response. Reuters reported that Iran's UN representatives said if the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of Tehran's nuclear research: "The United States may have the power to cause...

Iran now has the materials to make up to ten nuclear weapons, the U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency told a closed-door meeting in Vienna yesterday. That stunning statement, by U.S. ambassador Gregory L. Schulte, not only turned heads; it changed minds. It was also a conservative statement. In fact, nuclear experts tell me, if Iran had used the equipment the IAEA knows Iran imported from the nuclear black market of Pakistani nuclear dealer Dr. A.Q. Khan, it could have produced enough weapons-grade uranium for between twenty to twenty-five bombs – even as the IAEA was inspecting Iran’s...

Top News Story Little leaking out of closed IAEA talks on Iran. The Jerusalem Post reported that a senior State Department official said unless Iran executes a dramatic about-face and suspends all its nuclear activities, the UN Security Council will intervene "quite actively."Reuters reported that Iran said it could delay industrial-scale enrichment for up to two years, but the EU countered with a demand for a 10-year moratorium on all enrichment activity.BBC News reported that the United States has said it will not accept any deal which allows Iran to enrich uranium.   More Covert Iranian Operations. Reuters is...

Top News Story What kind of "democracy" do Iran’s new leaders want? Iran Press News reported that Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi said: "the only way to protect and promote the ascendancy of the Islamic rule is to set their entire world on fire" and "Islamic rule is not in the majority vote of the people; in general people are too stupid." Plus much more.Itar-Tass reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “The world will be in the hands of Islam over the next few years.”   Sharansky: what does it mean to bring democracy to the Middle...

Top News Story Media Line Israel is said to have operatives in Iran who are trying to locate the country’s secret uranium enrichment sites, according to the UK-based Sunday Times. An Israeli intelligence source told the paper that several suspected sites were located last year but that “there must be more.” According to the report, Israeli sources say the agents are operating from a base in northern Iraq and are guarded by Israeli soldiers with the approval of the Americans. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, the international community has been scrutinizing Iran since 2002...

Top News Story Iran Focus Tehran, Iran, Mar. 04 – A representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran University declared on Friday that Islam must “conquer the world” by defeating the West. Hojjatol-Islam Alireza Panahyan, who was delivering the pre-sermon speech at this week’s Friday prayers in the Iranian capital, said that the West was trying to put fear into the hearts of Muslims through “torture and nuclear weapons”. “We intend to conquer the world without [nuclear] weapons. Such weapons are not needed to set the stage for the return of the [Shiite messiah] Mahdi”, Panahyan...

Top News Story State Department Creates an Iran Office. Ken Timmerman, The Foundation for Democracy in Iran reported that the State Department has created, a long over due, special office to promote democracy-promotion in Iran.CNN News reported that the U.S. State Department is creating a special Office of Iran Affairs and a senior official said the office is being created "to facilitate a change in Iranian policies and actions."   The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds hearing on Iran, but not about the Iran Freedom & Support Act. Call your Senator! The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held...

Top News Story Preliminary investigation blames Iran for the attack on the Shiite Shrine in Samarra. Iran Focus reported that the deputy governor of the Iraqi province of Saladin, where the holy city of Samarra is situated, said preliminary investigation was pointing to Iran’s role in the bombing of the city’s revered Shiite shrine last week.   Iran Tests Missile with 4000 Kilometer range. Middle East Newsline reported that Iran launched a Shihab-4 missile, designed to have a range of 4,000 kilometers. Watch out Europe.   Shocking! Iran/Moscow talks fail, again. Reuters reported that Russian and Iranian negotiators met...

Top News Story Iran's "Order of Battle" to close the Strait of Hormuz, Revealed? Ken Timmerman, NewsMax published details of a 30-page contingency plan, reportedly from the Strategic Studies Center of the Iranian Navy which outlines the order of battle for shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.   Striking bus workers just released from prison, protest again. Iran Focus reported that close to a hundred bus drivers and conductors, who have been released recently from Evin Prison, gathered on Monday outside the Tehran Bus Company headquarters to protest against the government’s handling of their case.   Iranian Dissidents. Iran...

Top News Story Why wait? Read El Baradei's Iran report now. Vital Perspective published the full text of the embargoed IAEA Report on Iran's Nuclear Program.   Iran fails to divide the west. The Financial Times reported that France, Germany and Britain dismissed Tehran’s announcement that it had reached a “basic agreement” with Russia. German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said “The Iranian position is an attempt to split the international community. It will not succeed.”Itar-Tass reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Russian proposal "is not isolated, being a component of the possible package, with which all...

Top News Story Monday, the IAEA will issue its Iran report. Times Online said the IAEA report will likely be tough on Iran.   So Russia & Iran cut a deal, sort of. The Financial Times reported that Iran said on Sunday that it had struck an agreement with Russia on its nuclear program. But failed to resolve the issue of whether Iran would desist from all controversial nuclear activities. CNN News reported that the head of Russia's nuclear agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, said the talks had further to go.The Jerusalem Post reminded us that while Iran's agreement to a...

Top News Story Why support a democratic revolution in Iran. Human Events interviewed Michael Ledeen, who explained why pushing a democratic revolution within Iran is the wisest policy the United States can pursue with Iran.   Iran crosses the "redline": now producing enriched uranium. The New York Times reported that Iran has started producing enriched uranium.   But Russia is encouraged. The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia's top nuclear official expressed confidence Saturday that the IAEA still could resolve the international standoff.   And France is asks for "gestures" of goodwill. Xinhua reported that France called for a...

Top News Story While Iran blames the US. Israel and Britain for the bombing... Iran Focus reported that the Supreme Commander of IRGC accused the United States, Britain, and Israel of carrying out Wednesday’s bomb attack.   Evidence is pointing to Iran being behind the bombing in Samarra. John Batchelor, The American Spectator Blog reported that the best signals source points to the Samarra mosque bombing in Iraq as the launch operation of the Iranian counteroffensive.Kamangir (Archer) argued that there are similarities between the attack on Samarra and an earlier attack on a holy site in Iran where one...

Top News Story Iran Focus Tehran, Iran, Feb. 25 – Radical Islamist militiamen affiliated to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps staged military exercises in the western suburbs of Tehran on Friday to defend the Iranian capital against “enemy assaults”, a government-run news agency reported. Some 2,500 members of the paramilitary Bassij took part in Friday morning’s military drills in Qods (Jerusalem) Garrison in Tehran’s Garm-Darreh district. “In the military exercises, the Bassij forces destroyed the positions of enemy forces who had been ferried to Tehran by helicopters and mopped up the drop zone”, Isca-News reported. “The Bassij forces accomplished...