Elika Yusuf

ANALYSIS/OPINION: By  Clifford D. May September 19, 2017 Eleven years ago,  Henry Kissinger  famously said that  Iran ’s rulers must “decide whether they are representing a cause or a nation.” If the latter,  Iran ian and American interests would be “compatible.” As for the former: “If Tehran insists on combining the Persian imperial tradition with contemporary Islamic fervor, then a collision with America is unavoidable.” Since then,  Iran ’s rulers have left no room for doubt. They’ve been aggressively spreading their Islamic Revolution and constructing what can only be called a new Persian Empire. That will surprise no one who has seriously studied the ideology of  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini , founder of the Islamic Republic. What might: Their project has received significant support from the United States.

BY:RAY  takeyh september 22,2017 resident  Donald Trump  has sensibly insisted that the  Iran nuclear deal —formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—has to be revised. The reaction in some quarters, mainly among many of the former  Obama administration  officials who negotiated this bad deal, has been horror. Unfortunately, the media have uncritically swallowed many of the false assumptions and naive arguments of the deal’s supporters, and the elite consensus is that the agreement must be preserved lest the White House bumble us into a crisis—or worse, another war in the  Middle East.

By Heshmat Alavi 28 August 2017 As ISIS is losing ground in its two last enclaves of Raqqa and Deir el-Zor, there are many rightfully concerning reports of Iran seeking to chip further control in Syria . All the while, there are also signs of contradictory remarks heard from senior Iranian officials, parallel to indications on the ground of how international counterparts are seeking their own interests that fall completely against those of Tehran’s. Such incoherency signals nothing but troubling times ahead for Iran in losing its grasp of strategic interests across the Middle East , including Syria.

August 23, 2017 By  Keyvan Salami Iran can enrich uranium within five days if the  U.S . imposes more sanctions on Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's atomic agency head, warned this week. He claimed that  Iran  could achieve 20% enriched uranium in five days – a level at which it could then quickly be processed further into weapons-grade nuclear material. Last week, Iranian  president Hassan Rouhani  announced that Iran could abandon its  nuclear  agreement with world powers " within hours " if the United States imposes any more new sanctions. "If America wants to go back to the experience of imposing sanctions, Iran would certainly return in a short time – not a week or a month, but within hours - to conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations," Rouhani told a session of parliament broadcast live on state television. In response,  U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley  said Iran should not be allowed "...