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How Iran Will Crush Green Movement 2.0 - Mohsen Milani, Foreign Affairs

In normal presidential elections, it is only the candidates and their platforms that matter. Not so in Iran. There, the key player in the upcoming presidential elections is the sep...

Bomb, Coerce or Contain Iran? - Gregory Koblentz, The National Interest

Although Syria’s civil war is dominating front pages around the world, a debate is still raging in Washington, Tel Aviv and other capitals about how to stop Iran from develop...

Syria Could Be Iran's Vietnam - Thanassis Cambanis, Foreign Policy

By supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the hilt, Hezbollah and Iran are risking their hard-won reputation as stewards of an anti-Israel and anti-U.S. alliance that trans...

The Early Line on Iran's Presidential Race - Amir Taheri, New York Post

After a year of unofficial campaigning, the official segment of Iran’s presidential election started last weekend with 886 people registering as candidates. Next weekend, we’...

Imagining a Nuclear War Between Israel & Iran - Nick Turse, TomDispatch

In those first minutes, they'll be stunned. Eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare, nerve endings numbed. They'll just stand there. Soon, you'll notice that they are holding their arm...

2 Last-Minute Candidates Stir Up Iran Election - Ramin Mostaghim, LAT

Ahmadinejad aide Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, both seen as outside the clerical establishment, submit their names just before the dead...

Iran and Its Western Apologists - Reuel Marc Gerecht, Weekly Standard

Those who will excuse the regime are not all intellectually flippant -- Flynt and Hillary Leverett and Trita Parsi come to mind. Nor are they Iranian-Americans like the writer and ...

Assad Winning with a Little Help from His Friends - Liz Sly, Wash Post

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are beginning to turn the tide of the country’s war, bolstered by a new strategy, the support of Iran and Russia and the assistan...

The Day After a Strike on Iran - Marwan Muasher, The National Interest

All eyes are on what it will take to prevent Iran from getting its hands on a nuclear weapon. If sanctions and diplomacy prove incapable of containing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions�...

How to Stop Iran's Takeover of Syria - Michael Weiss, NOW Lebanon

It's been edifying to see how quickly the international press has discovered that Syrian air defense systems are not quite so "formidable" as they were once described by senior Pen...

Will Iran-Saudi Proxy War Spread to Iraq? - Mohammed Ayoob, Yale

Matters have been made worse in and for Iraq by the fact that, like Syria, Iraq has become a major theater of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Turkey pushed by force...

Sanctions Stifling Iran's Freedom Movement - Ryan Costello, CNN

Sweeping sanctions on Iran appear to have claimed their latest victim: the Samsung App store. Samsung has reportedly decided to block access to its App store in Iran from May 22. ...

West Cynically Bleeds Syria Dry - Seumas Milne, The Guardian

If anyone had doubts that the gruesome civil war in Syria is already spinning into a wider Middle East conflict, the events of the past few days should have laid them to rest. Most...

Iran & Israel Have a Common Enemy - Meir Javedanfar, Al Monitor

Israel and Iran's ally Hezbollah will soon miss the old days of fighting each other. The reason: Fundamentalist al-Qaeda-affiliated movements who hate both Jews and Shiites with a ...

Shining Light on Iran's Staged Election - Mehdi Khalaji, Wash Institute

Washington should not ignore Iran's presidential election, particularly given the regime's repeated claim that U.S. sanctions aim to hurt the people rather than curb the nuclear pr...

Ahmadinejad Won't Go Quietly - Geneive Abdo, CNN

As Iran’s election draws near, powerful figures within the ruling establishment seem more worried about the future of the incumbent than they are about the potential for violen...

'Red Lines' on Iran Not So Black & White - Shashank Joshi, The Diplomat

Amid the proliferation of red lines, the important ones are at risk of being opaque or even unintelligible in Tehran....

Syria's Tragedy Can No Longer Be Contained - Daily Telegraph

The world needs to confront the implications of its inability to keep Syria's horror within its frontiers....

Israel Steps Up to the Plate - Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post

So much for the suggestion by critics of stronger U.S. action that Syria’s anti-aircraft system is formidable. It seems someone in the Israeli government took a not-too-subtle sw...

Israel Tries to Sell U.S. on Iran Attack - Haviv Rettig Gur, Times of Israel

Washington is wary of striking at Tehran’s nuclear program because it fears the Iranian response; Israel wants to show the consequences can be minimal....

The Arab Spring Has Been Great for Israel - Eyal Zisser, Israel Hayom

The Arab Spring, which has left the Syrian regime mired in a bloody civil war the past two years, has also increased Israel's freedom of operation to levels not seen in years. Afte...

A Message to Assad - Jerusalem Post

The target seemed to be a Syrian version of Iran’s Fatah-110 missile, capable of traveling 300 kilometers with a half-ton warhead....

'Suicidal Iran' and the Plastic Keys to Paradise - Kevin Sullivan, RCW

The story goes something like this: During the Iran-Iraq War, faced with an invading Iraqi army, the outgunned and overwhelmed Islamic Republic of Iran eventually resorted to "huma...

Meet Ahmadinejad's Chosen Successor - Akbar Ganji, Foreign Affairs

Ahead of Iran's presidential election in June, President Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Khamenei are squabbling over the succession. Ahmadinejad wants Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, his ...

Iran's Strategy in Syria - AEI & the Institute for the Study of War

The Islamic Republic of Iran has conducted an extensive, expensive, and integrated effort to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power as long as possible while setting conditions to...

Could Ahmadinejad End Up in House Arrest? - Meir Javedanfar, Al Mon.

Ahmadinejad will join the three-member club of former presidents who served under Khamenei and then fell out of his favor. Whether Ahmadinejad will be the first member of the club ...

World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Not Named bin Laden - Mark Perry, FP

His true identity as the violent mastermind of Hezbollah would have come as a shock to his Damascus neighbors, who thought he was a chauffeur in the employ of the Iranian embassy. ...

Iran Softens Tune on Israel, But Why? - Kaveh Afrasiabi, Asia Times

Ahead of elections in June, prominent Iranian voices including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are presenting a softer tone on Israel than President Mahmud Ahmadineja...

Target the Ayatollah's Billions - Akrami & Ghasseminejad, National Post

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei controls an substantial portion of the Iranian economy through his various holdings and foundations. The most notable foundations directly controlled by him ...

Tranquil Days for Israel - David Ignatius, Washington Post

It's a measure of the relatively quiet time for Israel these days that the sharpest argument at a big national security conference here was between an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who want...

Obama Does Not Have Israel's Back - Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post

To a degree, all of Netanyahu’s seemingly unjustifiable actions can be justified when weighed against the need to avoid a confrontation with America....

How Hezbollah Wages War Against Israel - Sebastian Rotella, ProPublica

A rare inside look at Hezbollah during a recent terror trial in Cyprus portrayed a militant group with the prowess of an intelligence service: meticulous overseas reconnaissance, W...

Obama's Credibility on Iran Is at Stake - Jonathan Tobin, Commentary

Yesterday’s admission by the White House and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Syria appears to have used chemical weapons against its own people took the debate about Americ...

Here's What Iran's Up to in Syria - Alireza Nader, World Report

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a crucial player in the current Syrian conflict. Iran is the Syrian regime's biggest supporter, even more so than Russia. Tehran's ties with Damascu...

How Big Is Canada's Terror Threat? - Veronica Kitchen, Global Public Square

Terrorism in Canada (and the United States) is a rare event. In the 1960s, the FLQ, a group of violent and revolutionary Québec separatists, launched a bombing campaign that culmi...

Al-Qaeda & Iran: Different Tactics, Common Enemy - Jon Kay, Nat'l Post

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, is how the expression goes. And, fittingly enough, it apparently originated with an old Arabic proverb. But where the anti-American jihadism of ...

Israel Welcomes Hagel, a Friend Bearing Gifts - Jeff Goldberg, Bloomberg

Israeli leaders who think the U.S. is hostile to their concerns are more likely to take dangerous action against Iran. Hagel, by visiting, by spending time with military leaders, b...

What Is al-Qaeda Doing in Iran? - Alex Wilner, Ottawa Citizen

Shia Iran seems like an unlikely host for Sunni terrorists, but such collusion does occur when they deem circumstances demand it....

Bombing Trains in North America Not Iran's M.O. - Matt Gurney, Natl Post

Iran's leaders have never shied away from supporting terrorism. Israelis living within range of Hezbollah and Hamas rockets, many provided by Iran (and according to some reports, o...

Why Canada Needs to Remain Vigilant on Terrorism - Globe and Mail

An alleged al-Qaeda-backed plot to derail a Via passenger train in the Greater Toronto Area is a reminder of the threat that terrorism still poses to Canada, and the need for conti...

A Bleak Outlook for Ahmadinejad? - Daniel Nisman, Ynet News

The inability of Ahmadinejad’s camp to fill the Azadi stadium was coupled with an egress of supporters toward the end of the ceremony, as few people remained to hear the pres...

Iranian Sanctions Are Working - Meir Javedanfar, The Guardian

The Iranian government has looked more willing to compromise in nuclear negotiations since the threat of an oil embargo....

Why Hezbollah Is Fighting in Syria - Ali Hashem, Al Monitor

According to the source, Hezbollah decided to intervene militarily in the wake of three incidents. "The first was a full scale attack by Syrian rebels on Shiite villages on the bor...

Korea, Iran and the Dual-Loyalty Myth - Ben Cohen, JNS.org

No one of any significance is accusing Korean Americans of putting the interests of South Korea above those of the US....

Could Nuclear Iran Be Contained? - Kingston Reif, Bulletin of Atomic Sci.

On September 4, 1962, President John F. Kennedy released a statement in response to intelligence reports of a Soviet arms buildup in Cuba. Kennedy said the United States did not ha...

Ahmadinejad Adviser Arrested

A simmering rivalry between Iran’s president and powerful adversaries within the conservative hierarchy spilled into the open on Monday when security forces briefly arrested ...

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