Elika Yusuf

     09/18/2017    BY: KEN BLACKWELL Commendably, the  Trump administration  is set to initiate a  new Iran policy , which will be announced in October. Such change is imperative. The flawed nuclear agreement in 2015 , provided too many concessions, including tens of billions of dollars to the Iranian regime, following decades of deceit and lying in pursuit of the nuclear bomb.

BY HESHMAT ALAVI SEPTEMBER 12, 2017 Deep military and nuclear cooperation between North Korea and  Iran  makes sanctions on both regimes all the more essential he world currently faces two atomic crises in  Iran and North Korea , despite long strides in the effort of nuclear non-proliferation. Deep military and nuclear  cooperation  between the two states makes dealing with these challenges even more difficult. One may have thought lessons would have been learnt from the devastating lessons of  appeasement  from World War II – yet the approaches adopted vis-à-vis North Korea and Iran in signing nuclear agreements have raised accusations that Neville Chamberlain’s  famous policy  is still alive and well.

September 9, 2017 By  Hassan Mahmoudi Since its foundation, by Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, the regime of Iran has succeeded in maintaining its absolute power through the massive use of torture and executions of its citizens. They are now trying to cover up their crimes.

SEP 4, 2017 BY: Heshmat Alavi Two of the major crises the international community is currently engaged with are terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Iran, in particular, is negatively involved in both fields, being known as the central banker of international terrorism, and suspicious for its own controversial  nuclear program  at home parallel to its  nuclear/missile  collaboration with  North Korea .

By: Heshmat Alavi  AUG 29, 2017 Iran  is currently striving to manage a number of increasingly painstaking dilemmas. International spotlight is again on Tehran’s  nuclear program , with the  United States  demanding United Nations inspectors be granted access to its military sites.    Raja'i Shahr (Gohardasht) prison in Karaj, 20 kilometers west of Tehran

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 "...

By: HeshmatAlavi AUG 16, 2017 The pro- Iran deal  camp is recently making much noise about how the Trump administration and critics of the pact, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ( JCPOA ), are making rightful complaints of the text failing to address Iran’s destructive belligerence in the Middle East. These are valid concerns, considering the fact that even if the deal remains intact come October’s decision by  President Donald Trump  to find  Iran  in compliance or not, the mullahs are hell-bent to continue wreaking havoc and expanding influence across the region.

AUG 21, 2017 |  By  KELLY JANE TORRANCE Hassan Rouhani  was sworn in for his second term as president of  Iran  on August 5, surrounded by fresh flowers, fervent followers, and around 500 foreign officials. Representatives of the United Kingdom, France, the United Nations, and the Vatican rubbed shoulders with the Syrian prime minister, Hezbollah second-in-command Naim Qassem, Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader and FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list member Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, and murderous Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. The Westerners didn’t seem uncomfortable in such company; indeed, European Union foreign policy chief  Federica Mogherini  was described as the star of the show after Iranian members of parliament elbowed through the crowd to take selfies with the diplomat.

By: Pooya Stone 10 August 2017 The  regime in Iran has come under immense domestic  and international pressure recently. Most vivid are the sweeping sanctions imposed by US Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump.

By F. Mahmoudi 27 July 2017 In Iran, 1980s is known as a bloody decade as thousands of political opponents were executed in brutal mass murder. In the summer of 1988, a massive slaughter took place in Iran’s prisons . Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the successor of Khomeini, was dismissed as a result of his objection to this massacre.

By Heshmat Alavi 10 July 2017 The new administration in Washington has chosen to stand alongside its Arab allies to voice a clear message. This is how this message reads: The regime in Iran is domestically repressive and resorts to flagrant human rights violations, and expansionist outside of its borders, wreaking havoc across the Middle East and beyond. To take the next needed step, an all-out strategy is necessary to rein in Tehran and confront its belligerence inside the country and beyond. Far too long the international community has failed to recognize the fact that the regime in Iran is controlled by aggressive fanatics that will literally stop at nothing to seek their interests, while knowing their internal status is extremely fragile.

by  Hassan Mahmoudi July 10, 2017 The new Trump administration in Washington is still grappling with the extent to which it is obligated to uphold the illegitimate Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- the nuclear deal that the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany signed with each other in July 2015, and apparently  never signed by Iran . While the Trump administration is saying that military action is not off the table, grassroots efforts by Iranian expatriates to help their brethren inside the Iran to topple their repressive regime have been underway. These efforts were on full display recently on July 1 in Paris, France, where an estimated 100,000 Iranian dissidents and hundreds of politicians and other world dignitaries attended an annual "Free Iran" rally. The event, titled " Onward with the Iranian Resistance, Regime Change within Reach ," expressed the feelings of courageous young people in dozens of Iranian cities, where they...

By Ray Takeyh July 5           In recent congressional testimony, Secretary of State  Rex Tillerson sensibly stressed that the United States should “work towards support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government.” The commentariat was aghast, and the Islamic republic registered a formal protest note. Both parties seemed surprised that the United States has long assisted those seeking democratic change. During the Cold War, secretaries of state routinely assured those trapped behind the Iron Curtain that America supported their aspirations. Given that Iran is ruled by an aging Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the United States should be prepared for a transition of power there that may yet precipitate the collapse of the entire system.

By  Ken Blackwell  | June 26, 2017  Thirty years after President Reagan seized upon an historic opportunity to bring down the Iron Curtain, there are growing indications that President Trump can make similarly historic strides in the conflict between the U.S. and the new Evil of our time: Islamic extremism. In its first five months, President Trump’s presidency has witnessed dramatic shifts from the policies normalized by the Obama  administration. Few are as significant or wide-ranging as the changes in American dealings with the Islamic Republic of Iran .