Iran’s theocratic dictatorship has gone to great lengths to shore up its crumbling domestic legitimacy with a facade of democratic process. But today’s presidential election will be a tightly controlled exercise in political choreography that offers little real choice for the long-suffering Iranian people and even less hope for meaningful …
Senior Obama Administration officials held a background briefing on Friday in which they discussed the “alarming trend” of escalating Iranian support for terrorism. Two high-ranking officials, who remained anonymous under the ground rules of the briefing, warned that the tempo of Iran’s terrorist operations had risen to levels not seen …
The Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group Hezbollah is becoming more aggressively involved in Syria’s civil war, which threatens to reopen the old wounds of Lebanon’s 1975–1990 civil war. Hundreds of Hezbollah militants have joined the regime’s offensive to recapture the strategic Syrian town of Qusair, which sits astride an important …
Iranian authorities on Tuesday announced the approval of eight candidates who will be allowed to compete in the June 14 presidential election. The Guardian Council, which vetted the candidates, made sure that Iran’s next president will be a pliable servant of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The regime hopes …
Iran defiantly continues to expand its uranium enrichment program despite international sanctions and multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, according to a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuges that will increase the rate of enrichment and reduce the amount of time it needs to …
Bulgarian authorities yesterday accused Hezbollah of perpetrating a bombing that killed six people last summer, a finding that should lead to a reversal of the European Union’s policy of appeasement towards the Lebanon-based terrorist group. Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov announced the long-awaited results of the investigation into the July …
Former Senator Chuck Hagel (R–NE) repeatedly fumbled his responses on important Middle East security questions at his confirmation hearing this week. He sought to sidestep Senator John McCain’s (R–AZ) question about whether the surge of U.S.troops in Iraq succeeded. Although he had opposed the troop surge and denounced it at …
A Syrian defector, who was formerly involved in Syria’s chemical weapons program, charged that the Assad regime has mulled using chemical weapons against opposition forces and predicted that the regime would not hesitate to do so as a last resort. Major General Adnan Sillu, who defected to the opposition three …
Iraq’s government is resisting a request by the U.S. government to block Iranian planes from traversing Iraqi air space to resupply Syria’s repressive ruling regime, according to The Washington Post. Despite the certainty of U.S. officials that Iranian planes are transporting arms and other military equipment to Syria in violation …
