Iran

Iran, seeking Counter to US Sanctions, is Joining Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Warming up to Russia

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran’s foreign minister, attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, has signed key membership papers to formalize its entry into the Eurasian security body led by China and Russia. Although Iran is now considered by the US State Department to be in what it calls the “Middle […]

Eurasia

Those Iranian Planes Ferrying Drones to Moscow Flew over Georgia: But who gave Permission?

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Nadia Beard | – ( RFE/ RL) – TBILISI — Georgia’s position on the war in Ukraine has again come under domestic scrutiny after three Iran Air Cargo planes allegedly carrying drones to Russia passed through Georgian airspace. Over the last few days, Georgian opposition figures have called for answers from the government, accusing […]

Iran

Iran and the US appear unlikely to reach a new Nuclear Deal – leaving Everyone more Unsafe

The Conversation

By Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences | – (The Conversation) – Iran’s standoff with the United States over its potential nuclear weapons program is unlikely to ease anytime soon. The U.S. and Iran launched talks in 2021 to renew a now-defunct political deal that would curb Iran’s nuclear program. […]

Authoritarianism

Rumors Swirl Around Iranian Supreme Leader’s Successor: Will it be another Khomeini?

Golnaz Esfandiari

( RFE/ RL ) – Iran’s Rasa news agency has rekindled rumors that Mojtaba Khamenei, the influential son of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is being groomed as the successor to his elderly father, despite his lack of credentials. Affiliated with seminaries in the holy Shi’ite city of Qom, the agency used the title of […]

Iran

Did the U.S. Permanently Destabilize Iraq? Will There be an Intra-Shia Civil War?

Middle East Monitor

By Raed Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – There is usually a lot of competition between near-equal armed groups in Iraq. Resisting the 2003 US-led invasion provided a good opportunity for emerging groups from Sunni and Shia communities across the country to do just that. Such groups became the main protagonists in […]

Iran

Israel is worried about a possible Clash with Washington over the Iran Nuclear Deal

Middle East Monitor

By Adnan Abu Amer | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – As the countdown begins for the signing of a nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, a number of disputes have surfaced between Israel and the US about the deal. There is also criticism within Israel of the government’s political and military approach […]

Iran

Iran has Reached out to the US many Times, and often been Rebuffed by Washington

Jeffrey Rudolph

( Detailed Political Quizzes) – In an August 14, 2022, New York Times Opinion piece (“How the United States Misunderstands Iran”), Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes that, “By and large, the United States has sought to engage a[n] [Iranian] regime that clearly doesn’t want to be engaged…” […]

Featured

Why the Right Wingers in Israel and the US Really Oppose Iran Nuclear Deal: They want Regime Change Instead

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Right wing Israeli politicians such as former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and even centrist politicians like caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid have fulminated against any US renewal of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). As with the loony Right wing in the US (increasingly […]