It's time for the United States to hold Iran accountable.

Original Article - The New York Times, 7/11/19

LONDON — A British warship forced three Iranian boats to back off after they sought to block a British tanker from passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday, in the latest escalation of tensions between Tehran and the West.

“Contrary to international law, three Iranian vessels attempted to impede the passage of a commercial vessel, British Heritage, through the Strait of Hormuz,” the British government said. “We are concerned by this action and continue to urge the Iranian authorities to de-escalate the situation in the region.”

Iran denied any attempt to stop the tanker, according to Iranian news agencies.

Last week, British forces seized an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar bound for Syria, on suspicion that it was violating European Union sanctions, which Iran called an act of piracy. Some Iranian officials spoke of retribution, and an officer in Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohsen Rezaei, wrote on Twitter that if the tanker were not released, Iran “will be duty-bound to take reciprocal action and seize a British oil tanker.”

Original Article via David E. Sanger | The New York Times

July 1, 2019

WASHINGTON — Iran has exceeded a key limitation on how much nuclear fuel it can possess under the 2015 international pact curbing its nuclear program, effectively declaring that it would no longer respect an agreement that President Trump abandoned more than a year ago, state media reported on Monday.

The breach of the limitation, which restricted Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium to about 660 pounds, does not by itself give the country enough to produce a nuclear weapon. But it signals that Iran may be willing to abandon the limits and restore the far larger stockpile that took the United States and five other nations years to persuade Tehran to send abroad.

The developments were first reported by the semiofficial Fars news agency, citing an “informed source.” Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister of Iran, was later quoted confirming the news, according to another semiofficial outlet, the Iranian Students’ New Agency, or ISNA.

 U.S. military officials returned fire -- verbally -- hours after Iran blasted a Navy high-altitude drone out of the sky over the Strait of Hormuz, with U.S. Central Command leaders on Thursday slamming the "unprovoked" strike and Tehran's subsequent "false" justifications for it.
                                         

DUBAI—Two oil tankers were damaged in attacks off the coast of Iran early Thursday, including one operated by a Japanese company, on a day when Tehran rebuffed attempts by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to ease a military standoff with the U.S.

This is the second group of social media accounts identified by FireEye as part of an Iranian propaganda or disinformation campaign.

In the complex game of wits being played between the Trump administration and the Iranian regime, it appears that the U.S. temporarily checked Iran’s usual behavior.

Decision marks first time an element of a foreign state has been officially designated terrorist entity

When Iran uses the slogan “Death to America,” the country’s supreme leader said on Friday, it is specifically wishing death on President Trump and two of his senior officials.

When Iran uses the slogan “Death to America,” the country’s supreme leader said on Friday, it is specifically wishing death on President Trump and two of his senior officials.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Iran earlier this month to scrap its planned satellite launch, threatening to increase sanctions on the country.

National Security Adviser John Bolton retweeted, with apparent approving comment, a report that accused Iran of fudging its reports to nuclear-disarmament watchdogs.

National Security Adviser John Bolton delivered a no-holds-barred warning to Iran at a major summit in New York on Tuesday, telling the regime in a fiery speech that "we are watching, and we will come after you" and that there will be "hell to pay" if it continues on its current course.

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's currency hit a record low on Sunday of 100,000 rials to the dollar amid a deepening economic crisis and the imminent return of full US sanctions.

Trump's tweet followed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani cautioning the American leader on Sunday about pursuing hostile policies against Tehran, saying: "War with Iran is the mother of all wars."

Though by many accounts the situation in Syria's south is stabilizing as the government is fast securing the border with Jordan after a major offensive against FSA, al-Qaeda, and ISIS factions in the region, the possibility for further clashes between Israel and Damascus remains high, as we previously warned here. 

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy stands ready to ensure free navigation and the flow of commerce, the U.S. military’s Central Command said on Thursday, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned they would block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz if necessary.

Protesters have clashed with security forces in southwestern Iran, a day after several demonstrators were injured in nighttime skirmishes over water shortages and pollution, Iranian state media reported.

Traders at Tehran's Grand Bazaar have taken part in a big protest against rising prices and the plummeting value of Iran's currency, the rial.

Thousands took to the streets in the capital and other cities for Qods (Jerusalem) Day, held every year since the early days of Iran's Islamic revolution to show support for the Palestinians.

Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad shared top-secret files with European governments on Sunday night, purporting to prove Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon, claims which the regime in Tehran has always denied.

For weeks, California-based weapons researchers picked through satellite photos of the Iranian facility 25 miles from Shahrud, Iran. They found, they say, that work on the site now appears to focus on advanced rocket engines and rocket fuel, and is often conducted under cover of night. 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei threatened on Monday to respond harshly to the overnight attack on the outskirts of Hama. "The era of 'hit and run' attacks has ended, and from now on, any attacks will be answered resolutely," Khamenei was quoted as saying by the Hamas-affiliated Al-Manar website. "The enemies understand that they will achieve nothing by means of war."

Washington (CNN)US intelligence is monitoring a series of cargo flights from Iran into Syria that the US suspects may be carrying weapons systems into Syria for potential use by Bashar al-Assad's regime or Iranian forces, CNN has learned.

JERUSALEM –  Satellite images released Tuesday by Israeli Defense Forces show the scope of the military relationship between Iran and Syria.

TEHRAN, Apr. 09 (MNA) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday Iran’s nuclear industry is moving forward faster than before.

Iran’s army chief has vowed to completely destroy Israel within just 25 years, in a dramatic threat issued to their Middle East rival it has been revealed.

U.S. officials are increasingly alarmed by a congressional block on President Donald Trump's pick to be the next ambassador to Germany, a holdup that comes as Berlin pursues a host of anti-Israel measures and is growing closer to Iran, according to multiple administration insiders who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

TEHRAN, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Iran's missile production has increased three-fold over the past years, said a senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Wednesday.

TEHRAN, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Iran's missile production has increased three-fold over the past years, said a senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Wednesday.

Iran tested and deployed a Russian-made anti-aircraft missile system last year that has long worried U.S. and Israeli military officials because it gives the Islamic Republic a “generational improvement in capabilities,” the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency disclosed.

Iran has built another permanent military base outside Syria’s capital city complete with hangers used to store missiles capable of hitting all of Israel, according to Western intelligence sources. 

Millions of smartphone users in the United States, and around the world, are vulnerable to being spied on by the Iranian government, according to a new report. And apparently, all it takes is downloading the wrong app.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will protect itself from “any threat or any attempt to harm its sovereignty” after its military downed an Iranian drone that infiltrated the region.

“Israel is seeking for peace, but we will continue to defend ourselves against any attack against us, and against any attempt by Iran to establish military bases in Syria or anywhere else,” Netanyahu said Saturday after meeting with top brass at military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The rockets used in the recent chemical attacks in Syria that poisoned dozens of civilians, including children, were “Made in Germany,” Bild reports.Following the attacks in East Ghouta, a suburb outside Damascus with a population of 400,000, the remains of Iranian 107-millimeter rockets with the company logo of Krempel and the product signature “Made in Germany” were found at the sites, Bild reported Monday.

TEHRAN, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that Iran will never engage in the probable calls for renewed talks on the 2105 international deal which put an end to the disputes over the country's nuclear program.

In a rare article published on Arabic-language media, IDF spokesperson warns Lebanese civilians of possible war if Iran develops precision weapons in Lebanon and if Hezbollah takes control of the political system there.

Iran is spending billions of dollars on its weapons programs and supporting terrorism around the globe while it ignores the basic needs of its people, a new report asserts.

Iran says it will not negotiate on its missile program with European countries, reiterating that its defensive missile activities are off-limits.

Recent reports in the German weekly Der Spiegel and French daily Le Figaro have suggested that Europe is eying to pressure Iran over its missile program and/or regional policies.

Iran's Army says is planning to hold large-scale joint military exercises in a vast area along the Makran coastal strip, including the shores of the Sea of Oman, in the country's southern and southeastern regions, a senior commander says.

President Hassan Rouhani says Iran is resolved to strengthen its relations with Cuba, especially in the economic sector, expressing his opposition to the sanctions policy targeting independent nations.

TEHRAN, Iran –  An Iranian reformist lawmaker said Tuesday that some 3,700 people were arrested in the days of protests and unrest that roiled Iran over the past two weeks, offering a far higher number than authorities previously released.

RIYADH: Houthi attacks against the Yemeni people and Saudi Arabia are supported by Iran, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen said Wednesday.

When the Obama administration sold its Iran nuclear deal to Congress in 2015, one of its primary arguments was that the agreement was narrow. It lifted only nuclear sanctions. America, President Barack Obama told us, would remain a vigilant foe of Iran's regional predations through sanctions and other means.

In October, President Trump received a chorus of catcalls when he refused to "recertify" Iran's compliance with Barack Obama's flawed nuclear weapons deal with that country. The Europeans, Russia, China and numerous domestic pundits and politicians (including some within Trump's own government) were critical.

A newly released trove of documents recovered from Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound have revealed “secret dealings” between Iran and al-Qaeda. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran used some of the funds released to the country under the 2015 nuclear agreement to fund activity in the Middle East, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday.

The US House of Representatives has voted in favor of new measures that block sales of commercial aircraft to Iran, ignoring some lawmakers’ warnings that the hostile move would undermine the 2015 nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and the six world powers.

President Donald Trump is weighing a strategy that calls for more aggressive U.S. responses to Iran's forces, its Shi'ite Muslim proxies in Iraq and Syria, and its support for militant groups, according to five current and former U.S. officials.

An Iranian court upheld a 10 year prison sentence for Chinese-American student Xi Yue Wang on Sunday on charges of collaborating with foreign governments.

Iran has tested its first ever long-range missile defense system amid tensions with the US over its weapons programme, Iranian state media has said.

The United States is pushing U.N. nuclear inspectors to check military sites in Iran to verify it is not breaching its nuclear deal with world powers. But for this to happen, inspectors must believe such checks are necessary and so far they do not, officials say.

Israel is using a visit this week by the United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, to highlight concerns about what it says are Iran’s efforts to produce advanced, precision weapons in Lebanon and Syria.

Two years after the Obama administration contended that the nuclear deal it reached with Iran had opened the door to international inspection of military sites, a senior military adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared Sunday that it does not.

The Trump administration is giving "strong indications" that it is preparing a case to decertify Iran's compliance with the international nuclear agreement, an expert says.

Qatar has defied Saudi Arabia by strengthening its diplomatic ties with Iran - rather than cutting them back as Saudi Arabia and its allies have demanded.

Iran's atomic chief has warned that Tehran needs only five days to ramp up its uranium enrichment to 20 percent, a level at which the material could be used for a nuclear weapon.

The Iranian Judiciary has issued a ruling demanding that the US government pay around 245 million dollars in damage to a number of victims of chemical attacks carried out by Saddam Hussein’s troops during the 1980 to 1988 imposed war on Iran.

New imagery released by imageSat, which operates Israel’s EROS-B satellite, reportedly show the first ever Scud missile factory being built inside wartorn Syria. 

Iran’s nuclear program could be restarted in a matter of “hours,” if the American government imposes further sanctions on Tehran, the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said on Tuesday.

Iran is preparing to send a flotilla of warships to the Atlantic Ocean following the announcement of a massive $500 million investment in war spending, according to Iranian leaders, who say the military moves are in response to recent efforts by the United States to impose a package of new economic sanctions on Tehran.

By a huge majority, members of Iran’s parliament voted Sunday to increase spending on the nation’s ballistic missile program and finance its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Two players on Iran’s national soccer team were banned for life from playing for their country on Thursday after they participated in a match with their club team in Greece against an Israeli team, an Iranian governmental official said.

Iran has executed a 21-year-old man who was arrested at age 15, Amnesty International and an Iranian news agency reported.

An Iranian drone came within 100 feet of a US Navy F/A-18 attempting to land on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, according to two US defense officials with knowledge of the incident. The officials said the drone forced the US aircraft to take evasive action.

Hassan Rouhani won the endorsement of Iran's supreme leader for his second term of president on Thursday after an easy election win, pledging to open Iran to foreign trade and investment but facing internal hardline resistance and renewed U.S. antagonism.

A New York congressman is urging US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to investigate the funneling of millions of dollars by an Iranian regime-controlled foundation to Ivy League universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Princeton.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have started using a new route across the Gulf to funnel covert arms shipments to their Houthi allies in Yemen's civil war, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters.

Iran has complained to the U.N. Security Council over the latest U.S. sanctions imposed on Tehran.

The Trump administration is pushing for inspections of suspicious Iranian military sites in a bid to test the strength of the nuclear deal that President Donald Trump desperately wants to cancel, senior U.S. officials said.

Two enemies of America are poised for upcoming rocket launches, two senior U.S. officials told Fox News, with another North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile launch expected as soon as Wednesday night and Iran on the verge of sending its own vehicle into space.

A U.S. Navy ship fired warning shots at an Iranian ship in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, U.S. defense officials confirmed to Fox News.

The families of four prisoners detained in Iran say Tehran is using them to extract political and financial concessions from Washington. Those families will testify before Congress Tuesday.

Iran and Iraq signed an agreement on Sunday to step up military cooperation and the fight against "terrorism and extremism", Iranian media reported, an accord which is likely to raise concerns in Washington.

Kuwait is closing the Iranian cultural mission and related offices in the Gulf Arab state and reducing the number of Iranian diplomats stationed in the country, according to the official news agency, KUNA.

Iran's president said on Wednesday that his country will stand up to the United States and reciprocate for any new sanctions that America imposes on the Islamic Republic.

The Trump administration told Congress for a second time Monday that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal and can keep getting sanctions relief, even as it insisted Tehran would face consequences for breaching "the spirit" of the deal.

An American student from Princeton University was arrested in Iran and has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges he was spying for the United States, an Iranian judiciary official said on Sunday, an action bound to aggravate relations between the two countries.

An Iranian cancer researcher who was denied entry to the United States previously headed a student branch of a volunteer paramilitary militia, according to footage aired on Iranian state television on Thursday.

Iran is said to be building new long-range ballistic missiles at a Syrian weapons factory identified by the United States as developing non-conventional weaponry, according to regional reports alleging that Russia and North Korea are aiding in the endeavor.

Iraq’s U.S.-backed prime minister declared victory over Islamic State in Mosul on Monday, but Iran is shaping up to be one of the biggest winners in the struggle with Washington for influence in Baghdad and across the region.

Iran's military said Sunday that it has launched several missiles into eastern Syria, targeting Islamic State fighters in retaliation for the twin attacks that rocked Tehran on June 7.

Damning German intelligence reports emerged in June and July revealing the Iranian regime’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and missile technology in defiance of international sanctions and UN resolutions. A federal intelligence report also said that the Islamic Republic targets Jewish and Israeli institutions with espionage.

Iran is targeting German companies in its bid to advance its missile program, in possible violation of an international agreement, and at least on occasion with the aid of a Chinese company, according to a damning recent report from a German intelligence agency.

U.S. forces have been instructed to take all measures needed to protect American interests in Syria, including military measures, as part of an effort that comes after top officials in the Trump administration assessed that Iran is deliberately probing American weaknesses and reactions on the Syrian battlefield, according to senior Trump administration officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

A British-Iranian woman serving a five-year jail sentence in Tehran on unspecified charges relating to national security is losing her hair and experiencing “low and despairing” moods as her incarceration lasts far beyond her family’s expectation.

The Iranian regime bears historic responsibility for the instability and crisis in the region today and Tehran has been responsible for a series of deadly terrorist attacks against the United States, a bipartisan group of former American officials has said. The 30-member delegation also expressed solidarity with thousands of Iranians gathered in Paris on July 1, 2017 for the annual rally of the Iranian opposition.

Anti-Israel protesters in Iran unveiled a digital countdown showing 8,411 days to what they said would be the "destruction of Israel", as part of an annual rally in support of the Palestinian Territories.

Iran’s massive funding of terrorist groups that endanger Israel was exposed in shocking detail by IDF Military Intelligence chief Maj.- Gen. Hertzi Halevi on Wednesday. 

Trump administration officials, anticipating the defeat of the Islamic State in its de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa, are planning for what they see as the next stage of the war, a complex fight that will bring them into direct conflict with Syrian government and Iranian forces contesting control of a vast desert stretch in the eastern part of the country.

U.S. officials told CBS News on Wednesday that an Iranian warship had shined a spotlight and laser at an American military helicopter accompanying two U.S. Navy vessels sailing through the strategic Strait of Hormuz during the night.

New efforts by Iranian-backed militias to control supply lines in southern Syria highlight an alarming trend in the war-torn region: Militias and their foreign backers are accelerating their rivalry for power as the U.S.-led coalition shrinks the Islamic State’s territory.

Iran has arrested almost 50 people in connection with twin attacks on Tehran that killed 17 people last week, officials said, as security forces stepped up efforts to crack down on suspected militants.

Gunmen and suicide bombers on Wednesday launched twin assaults on Iran's parliament and the tomb of the country's revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran, leaving at least 12 people dead and scores of others injured.

A government contractor who was charged Monday with leaking top secret U.S. intelligence to the media appears to be a climate change activist and vociferous anti-Trump leftist who is sympathetic to the terrorist regime in Iran, according to her social media profiles.

Iran is believed to be developing advanced nuclear-related capabilities that could significantly reduce the time it needs to build a deliverable nuclear weapon, according to statements by Iranian officials that have fueled speculation among White House officials and nuclear experts that the landmark accord has heightened rather than reduced the Islamic Regime's nuclear threat.

An influx of cash that was the byproduct of the deal Iran struck with a group of world powers to curtail its nuclear program may not be changing the way Iran goes about wielding influence across the Middle East and beyond.

President Trump, who has never made a secret of his hostility toward Iran, called recently for a grand regional strategy among Sunni nations to isolate the country. But Tehran received that threat with surprising equanimity because, in practice, the Trump administration has shown a willingness to do business with the country.

Iran has built a third underground ballistic missile production factory and will keep developing its missile program, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a senior commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard as saying.

TEHRAN — Flush from his decisive re-election victory, Iran’s president struck back on Monday after a weekend of verbal affronts from the Saudi-American summit meeting, describing President Trump’s visit to Riyadh as empty theatrics and mocking his support for a monarchy that has “never seen a ballot box.”

The United States on Wednesday sanctioned two Iranian defense officials, an Iranian company and members of a China-based network for supporting Iran's ballistic missile program, the U.S. Treasury said in a statement.

SIX Iranian boat people were caught holidaying in their homeland after lying on their visa applications about fearing for their lives if they had to return there.

Iran is preparing to launch two new domestic satellites into space, according to a new announcement by Iranian military leaders that is stirring discussion among U.S. national security insiders who say the move is likely cover for the test firing of advanced intercontinental ballistic missile technology that could be used as part of Iran's nuclear program.

Iran will hit back at most of Saudi Arabia with the exception of Islam's holiest places if the kingdom does anything "ignorant", Tehran's defense minister was quoted as saying on Sunday after a Saudi prince threatened to move the "battle" to Iran.

A British-Iranian grandfather will be entering his seventh year in prison for alleged espionage charges in Iran, his family said.

Iran attempted to launch a cruise missile from a submarine in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday but the test failed, two U.S. officials told Fox News.

Tehran seeks to completely overhaul, revamp military might to counter U.S.

Boeing Co. is making “steady progress” to complete the terms of an 80-jetliner sale to Iran Air and expects to deliver the initial planes next year, the first U.S. aircraft exports to Iran since the country’s revolution in 1979.

Iran’s short, intense presidential campaign kicks off Friday with the first televised debate featuring six candidates in a race widely seen as a referendum on whether Iranians feel they have benefited from the nuclear deal that took effect last year.

AMMAN/BEIRUT, April 27 (Reuters) - Israel struck an arms supply hub operated by the Lebanese group Hezbollah near Damascus airport on Thursday, Syrian rebel and regional intelligence sources said, targeting weapons sent from Iran via commercial and military cargo planes.

A U.S. guided-missile destroyer fired a flare in the direction of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard ship this week during an encounter in the Persian Gulf, a Navy official has confirmed to ABC News.

Iran's supreme leader called on presidential candidates on Tuesday to champion economic self-sufficiency, further distancing himself from Hassan Rouhani's policy of opening to the West and seeking foreign investment.

By dropping charges against major arms targets, the administration infuriated Justice Department officials — and undermined its own counter proliferation task forces.

Iran is failing to fulfill the "spirit" of its landmark nuclear deal with world powers, President Donald Trump said Thursday days after his chief diplomat said Tehran was meeting the terms of the agreement.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad-Javad Zarif, has criticised the US after his counterpart, Rex Tillerson, said Tehran was creating “alarming and ongoing provocations” to destabilise countries in the Middle East.

Iran will ask "no one's permission" to build up its missile capability, President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday, in what appeared to be a defiant response to U.S. efforts to hamper the Iranian military.

The Trump administration is leveling new economic sanctions against senior Iranian officials and its prison system for widespread human rights abuses, including the systematic torture of those being held in these facilities, according to White House officials familiar with the matter.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday stunned the country by unexpectedly filing to run in the May presidential election, contradicting a recommendation from the supreme leader to stay out of the race.

The Iranian military holds annual war games to showcase its latest capabilities and technologies. This year, it conducted the Velayat-95 war games in both the Persian Gulf and northern Indian Ocean. Among the marquee capabilities the Iranian navy claims to have acquired was a combined sonic and magnetic approach to de-mining, utilizing both ships and helicopters. The accompanying article from Fars News discusses this capability.

President Hassan Rouhani claimed Donald Trump’s country was not acting ‘within international frameworks’ and should be made to ‘regret ‘ last week’s cruise missile blitz.

Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah to rule before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has seen his profile rise in recent months following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, who promises a harder line against the Shiite power.

Iran "won't be quiet" after the U.S. missile attack that hit a number of military targets in central Syria, Iran's parliament news agency, ICANA.ir, reported Friday.

The announcement that a prominent conservative cleric will run for Iran’s presidency next month has transformed the race, potentially unifying opponents to President Hassan Rouhani in a strong challenge to his re-election.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Iran and Russia on Tuesday to use their influence with the Syrian regime to make sure that it will not repeat its use of chemical weapons against its own citizens as part of the civil war currently raging in the country. 

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, called to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, describing it as a “terrorist army.” He said “Iran supports the terrorist dictator of Damascus and the militias in Yemen, Baghdad and Beirut.”

Tehran’s missile development programs—like developing solid fuelled ballistic missiles, bottle-necked warheads, multiple re-entry vehicles (MRVs)—suggests that Tehran is pursuing a missile program that can defeat the missile defence systems of its adversaries, and cruise missiles could be a credible counter measure against enemy ballistic missile defence systems.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Reuters on Tuesday that Russia could use Iranian military bases to launch air strikes against militants in Syria on a "case by case basis."

Iran on Sunday sanctioned what it described as 15 U.S. companies, alleging that they support terrorism, repression and Israel's occupation of land that Palestinians want for a future state, likely in retaliation for sanctions earlier announced by the United States.

The Trump administration is planning to roll out new targeted sanctions on Iran as soon as Friday, multiple sources tell CBS News.

The inspections regime put in place to closely monitor Iran's nuclear activity is in jeopardy unless the U.S. and other nations contribute more money, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday.

Iran is sending advanced weapons and military advisers to Yemen's rebel Houthi movement, stepping up support for its Shi'ite ally in a civil war whose outcome could sway the balance of power in the Middle East, regional and Western sources say.

Iran's Quds force plotted with the aid of a paid Pakistani man to surveil --and possibly assassinate--the head of the French-Israeli chamber of commerce, according to revelations from a Monday court proceeding in Berlin and German media reports.The daily Berliner Zeitung reported that the 31-year-old Pakistani Syed Mustafa spied on the French-Israel business professor David Rouach who teaches at the elite  Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP)  and served as head of the French-Israeli chamber of commerce.

Iran's Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei accused Israel and the West on Sunday morning of promoting women's exploitation for the purpose of earthly pleasures, calling it a "Zionist conspiracy" aimed at destroying human society.

If the Trump administration is serious about taking on Iran in the Middle East it must transform its strategy in Syria for fighting the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS).  Our current strategy will only continue to strengthen Tehran’s grip on the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blasted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and accused the State of Israel of being "the greatest nuclear threat to the international community" Thursday night.

A new Iran-funded Iraqi Hezbollah "brigade" aims to "liberate" the Golan Heights from Israel, spokesman Seyed Hashem Moussavi last week said last week at a news conference in Iran.

In a provocative move, Iran announced sending the “45 Group” of the Iranian Naval Force, which consists of a ship and a destroyer to the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab. The tension caused by the continued friction between the Iranian gunboats and US forces located in international waters is due to the persistent attempts of Iran to assist and provide the Yemeni militia with weapons.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) arrested two Christians – a mother and her son – in late February as part of a brutal crackdown on Catholicism in the country’s West Azerbaijan Province.

Swift-moving Iranian vessels came dangerously close to a U.S. Navy surveillance ship in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, U.S. officials said Monday.

Continuing a pattern of provocative actions, Iran this weekend test-fired a pair of ballistic missiles and sent fast-attack vessels close to a U.S. Navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials confirmed to Fox News.

Iran is poised to go on a major military shopping spree in 2020, after a United Nations ban prohibiting the country from purchasing sophisticated weapons is lifted.

Turkish-Iranian relations are experiencing new turbulence as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Feb. 14 that Tehran is promoting “Parthian (Persian) nationalism.” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu followed suit by referring to Iran’s sectarian policies in the region. Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Muftuoglu elaborated further, saying Iranian accusations are “neither acceptable nor comprehensible.”

Iran claimed on Monday that it had successfully test fired the latest version of a submarine-launched cruise missile.

A recent video posted this week shows Islamic Republic strategist, Hassan Abbassi, discussing the destructive potential of Iran’s hidden army within the US.

Voice of America News quotes Iranian media reports and spokesmen for the Syrian opposition to report that Iran is using the Syrian battleground to train its military officers.

DUBAI (Reuters) - The United States should expect a "strong slap in the face" if it underestimates Iran's defensive capabilities, a commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday, as Tehran concluded war games.

TEHRAN, Iran –  Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard has launched several sophisticated rockets during military exercises, Iranian media reported on Monday.

Tehran (AFP) - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard is to conduct military drills next week, a senior commander announced Saturday, despite warnings from the United States and fresh sanctions over a ballistic missile test.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News' "Hannity" Thursday night that his country and the United States have a "grand mission" to confront the threat of a nuclear Iran. 

A full-length animated film depicting an armed confrontation between Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the U.S. Navy is soon to open in Iranian cinemas, amid rising tensions over President Donald Trump's hardening rhetoric against Tehran.

According to White House officials speaking to the Free Beacon, Michael Flynn’s resignation was coordinated by a group of former Obama officials and loyalists who wanted to protect the Iran Deal from its largest critic. The effort included planting stories meant to discredit Flynn, the national security advisor to President Trump.

Iranian media sources say that a “military drone” has crashed in the country’s southern port city of Jask on the shore of Oman Sea.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians rallied on Friday to swear allegiance to the clerical establishment following U.S. President Donald Trump's warning that he had put the Islamic Republic "on notice", state TV reported.

Iran launched another missile Wednesday from the same launch pad east of Tehran where it conducted a previous ballistic missile test last month, an official told Fox News.

Iran removed a powerful missile from a launchpad east of Tehran within the past few days, Fox News has learned, as U.S. and Iranian officials continued trading public barbs about the Islamic Republic's missile tests.

In his first speech since Mr Trump took office, Mr Khamenei said the president had exposed "political, economic, moral and social corruption" in the US.

Iran’s persistent use of cruel and inhuman punishments, including floggings, amputations and forced blinding over the past year, exposes the authorities’ utterly brutal sense of justice, said Amnesty International.

The Trump administration is imposing sanctions on Iran following its recent ballistic missile test.

The Trump administration is considering a range of options to counter Iran’s aggressive activity in the Middle East, said a senior official who would not rule out military action.

A ballistic missile launched by Iran on Sunday was North Korean in construction or design, according to the Pentagon. The missile test, which ended in failure, was not a violation of 2015's Iranian nuclear deal, but arguably was in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution. 

A reported ballistic missile test by Iran is to be discussed by the UN Security Council amid concern the move violates a resolution on the country's capability.

Iran conducted a ballistic missile test in yet another apparent violation of a United Nations resolution, U.S. officials told Fox News on Monday.

Iran said on Saturday it would stop U.S. citizens entering the country in retaliation to Washington's visa ban against Tehran and six other majority-Muslim countries announced by new U.S. President Donald Trump.

In a speech made at Yad Vashem a day prior to International Holocaust Memorial Day, Netanyahu addressed the Iranian threat and pointed to the new American president as a strong ally.

Iran says that if US President Donald Trump carries through with his vow to “tear up” the controversial nuclear deal with Tehran, it will quickly relaunch its nuclear program.

Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that they seized a shipment of missile system components bound for Iran, according to official statements that could put the Islamic Republic in violation of international bans on such behavior.

Iran is using new methods of recruiting and training children through its paramilitary militia group, Basij, one of the five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The children, as young as eight years old, are trained to hate the US and Israel and to attack their enemies in the West, as well as to oppose Western values.

A group of leading Iranian human rights activists and former political prisoners published an open letter on Friday to President-elect Donald Trump asking for a wholesale change from President Obama’s rapprochement with Iran’s clerical regime.

Iranian FM promises to ‘surprise’ incoming US president with its response if he follows through on promises to nix the pact

Iran is looking to Syria peace talks next week as a chance to build on its regional clout, experts say, as Tehran, Moscow and Ankara all stake out claims for influence.

Just over a year since Iran captured 10 US sailors - and detained them for around 15 hours - for entering Iranian waters "illegally," it appears America's nuclear-deal-partner wants to make sure its citizenry do not forget...

Iran will not renegotiate its nuclear agreement with world powers, even if it faces new U.S. sanctions after Donald Trump becomes president, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday.

Iran has taken delivery of its first Western-built passenger plane in decades, following the lifting of sanctions last year.

 President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for defense secretary, Gen. James N. Mattis, has told Congress that Iran is the “biggest destabilizing force in the Middle East” and that the United States needs to forge a strategy to “checkmate Iran’s goal for regional hegemony.”

The United Nations chief expressed concern to the Security Council that Iran may have violated an arms embargo by supplying weapons and missiles to Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, according to a confidential report, seen by Reuters on Sunday.

VIENNA (AP) — Iran is to receive a huge shipment of natural uranium from Russia to compensate it for exporting tons of reactor coolant, diplomats say, in a move approved by the outgoing U.S. administration and other governments seeking to keep Tehran committed to a landmark nuclear pact.

The Obama administration has paid Iran more than $10 billion in gold, cash, and other assets since 2013, according to Iranian officials, who disclosed that the White House has been intentionally deflating the total amount paid to the Islamic Republic.

The USS Mahan, a U.S. Navy destroyer nicknamed "built to fight," fired three warning shots Sunday toward four Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a politically strategic and often disputed strait between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. The incident was spurred after the four Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ships sped toward the Navy warship, seemingly out of nowhere, while failing to respond to U.S. officials repeated requests for them to slow down, Reuters reported Monday morning.

Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died Sunday after suffering a heart attack, Iranian state-run media said. He was 82.

Unlike Iran’s nuclear program, the country’s arsenal of ballistic missiles has received only scant scholarly attention. At best, some highly technical analyses have been offered. At worst, the missiles have been considered only as part of the nuclear project, designed to carry nuclear warheads.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is perceived by some as a business empire, with an estimated quarter of the country’s economy under its control.

DUBAI - Arab separatist militants in Iran said on Tuesday they had blown up two oil pipelines in coordinated attacks in the western Khuzestan region two days earlier, though this was subsequently denied by Iran's Interior Ministry.

A dissident group has leaked documents claiming Iranian support to be much larger than previously thought in the Syrian civil war.

The federal prosecutor in Germany announced on Monday the indictment of a Pakistani man allegedly commissioned by Iran’s regime to spy on the head of the German-Israel friendship society, as well as economic entities.

Iran views the survival of Assad's Syrian government as crucial to its ultimate objectives in the region. Ultimately, Iran is partly responsible for the massacre taking place in Aleppo. Here are five ways that Iran has impacted the war in Syria:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow on Tuesday to work toward a political accord to end Syria’s nearly six-year war, leaving the United States on the sidelines as the countries sought to drive the conflict in ways that serve their interests.

Iran has finalized an agreement with Airbus to acquire 100 jetliners, the first of which is tentatively expected to be delivered in mid-January, a senior official said on Monday.

WASHINGTON –  In an unexpected reversal, President Barack Obama declined to sign a renewal of sanctions against Iran but let it become law anyway, in an apparent bid to alleviate Tehran's concerns that the U.S. is backsliding on the nuclear deal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu conveyed a message to Iran on Wednesday, warning the Islamic Republic's leaders, "Don't threaten us, we are not a rabbit we are a tiger. If you threaten us you endanger yourself."

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has ordered the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation to start planning the development of nuclear-powered ships in reaction to what he called the United States’ violation of their nuclear deal.

Donald Trump has had a stark warning from the Iranian defense minister who says the President-elect could trigger a world war if he provokes country’s in the Middle East.

Boeing Co. clinched a deal to sell 80 jetliners to Iran, completing the first major agreement between a U.S. company and the Islamic Republic, just as the political winds are changing.

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani of Iran is racing to sign as many oildeals with Western companies as he can before hard-liners at home and President-elect Donald J. Trump have a chance to return the Mideast country to cultural and economic isolation.

The Iranian government has opened a sinister kids’ war-based theme park which instead of roller-coasters and roundabouts has military checkpoints and AK47s.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is expected to agree on Wednesday to develop a major Iranian oil field, a spokeswoman for the country’s oil ministry said, signaling that giant energy companies won’t be deterred by President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to undo the Iran nuclear deal.

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced 15 people to death for spying for Iran and handed 15 others prison terms ranging from six months to 25 years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to renew his assault on the Iran nuclear deal when he meets with Donald Trump, whose opposition to the accord overarches growing questions about its fate.

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense likely spells trouble for the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.

The US Senate will vote this week on legislation to renew sanctions on Iran for 10 years, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

Senate Democrats are ripping Iran over threats issued by top Iranian officials to retaliate if Congress extends sanctions that the Obama administration has said are permitted under last summer's nuclear deal, according to conversations with lawmakers conducted by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The Senate will vote this week on a bill that would renew sanctions on Iran for 10 years, Senator Mitch McConnell, the chamber's Republican leader, said on Tuesday in remarks as he opened the daily session.

A US Navy Seahawk helicopter had what the Navy is calling an "unsafe and unprofessional encounter" with an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps patrol boat Saturday near the Strait of Hormuz.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran may seek to set up naval bases in Yemen or Syria in the future, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces said in remarks published on Sunday.

An Iranian general has estimated that State of Israel will not exist in 10 years and will be wiped out by the Palestinians.

Iran is smuggling weapons and ammunition to Hezbollah through commercial flights from the Islamic Republic to Lebanon, according to intelligence information revealed by Israel's UN ambassador to the Security Council, which was cleared for publication on Tuesday.

The Obama administration is considering new measures in its final months in office to strengthen the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran, senior U.S. officials said, with President-elect Donald Trump’s first appointments foreshadowing an increasingly rocky road for the controversial deal.

At least a dozen senior officials who were part of the negotiating team that conducted talks with the west regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear program were arrested by Iranian authorities on espionage charges, Channel 2 citing an Iranian member of parliament reported Friday.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Thursday that Iran was endangering support for a landmark deal with major powers by twice overstepping a "soft" limit on sensitive material.

The House laid down markers Tuesday as to how it will try to shape foreign policy going into the new administration by passing two sanctions bills: one targeting Iran, the other Syria.

Nearly a dozen Arab nations accused Iran on Monday of sponsoring “terrorism” throughout the Middle East while increasing support for jihadist groups since signing the international nuclear deal last summer.

Russia is in talks with Iran over a $10 billion arms deal that would Moscow provide advanced tanks, artillery systems, planes and helicopters to the Islamic Republic.

WASHINGTON— Donald Trump as president will be positioned to swiftly pull the U.S. out of the Obama administration’s landmark nuclear agreement with Iran, as he suggested during his campaign.

Iran has exceeded a soft limit on sensitive material set under its nuclear deal with major powers, the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Wednesday, hours after Donald Trump - who has strongly criticized the agreement - won the U.S. presidential election.

The U.S. spent more than $160 billion to rebuild war-wrecked Iraq and Afghanistan, but there appears to be little appetite in Washington to fund a third big reconstruction era for Iraq’s ongoing second war.

The money vacuum opens the door for terrorist-supporting Iran to inject its influence into more neighborhoods as the U.S. stays out.

Iranians bask in anti-American feeling as they observe 1979 takeover by student activists.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s elite military force, is sending assets to infiltrate the United States and Europe at the direction of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to recent Farsi-language comments from an Iranian military leader.

Iran has arrested organizers of a rally which took place on Friday at the tomb of the ancient Persian King Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae, Iran, to protest the clerical regime’s policies and which coincided with the historic monarch’s birthday

Lebanon's lawmakers elected Michel Aoun, an lran-backed politician and former general, as president Monday, ending more than two years the country has gone without a leader.

TEHRAN — Iran’s foreign ministry has rejected accusations from the United States that it has been shipping arms to the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to media reports on Monday.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch is declining to comply with an investigation by leading members of Congress about the Obama administration’s secret efforts to send Iran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year, prompting accusations that Lynch has “pleaded the Fifth” Amendment to avoid incriminating herself over these payments, according to lawmakers and communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

IRAQ—U.S. officials tell NBC News that they believe Iran has supplied weapons to the Houthis in Yemen — including coastal defense cruise missiles like the ones that were fired at US Navy ships earlier this month.

Republican lawmakers say the Obama administration's controversial “ransom” paid to Iran earlier this year is fueling a new wave of harsh sentences being handed down in the country to Iranian-Americans. 

Iran's navy on Wednesday released a photo of what's being called a "suicide drone" that can be loaded with explosive materials and deliberately crashed into targets at sea and on land.

The announcement was carried by Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Iran has been shaken by scandalous allegations against a top Qur’an reciter, who is accused of sexually abusing underage trainees, in the first case of its kind to cast a spotlight on the taboo topic.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- An Iranian-American held in Tehran has reportedly been sentenced to 18 years in prison for “collaboration with a hostile government,” yet another dual national convicted in a secret trial since Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani chastised U.S. presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Sunday, calling the American election "a choice between bad and worse."

A senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says Iran opposes meddling by any country in the internal affairs of other states.

In an interview with Iran's Arabic-language al-Alam television news network on Sunday, the Leader’s advisor on international affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, criticized Turkey’s military presence in Iraq, which is claimed by Ankara to be aimed at participation in the ongoing Iraqi military operation to retake the strategic northern city of Mosul from Daesh Takfiri terrorists.

If you ranked the civilizations that have most affected the course of human development, Persia would be near the top of the list. We forget this because in recent centuries, the states that have ruled in Iran have been either weak or isolated from the rest of the world.

Iranian hardliners have intensified their anti-Western crackdown by sentencing two Iranian-Americans to 10 years in prison on charges of cooperating with the United States. The unjust judgments, reported by Iranian media on Tuesday, mark the latest effort by the judiciary, controlled by the country’s hardline faction, to thwart improved ties with the United States and the West after the 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran is seeking “many billions of dollars” in payments from the United States in exchange for the release of several U.S. hostages still being detained in Iran, according to reports by Iran’s state-controlled press that are reigniting debate over the Obama administration’s decision earlier this year to pay Iran $1.7 billion in cash.

After Iran coolly announced half a dozen 10-year sentences for men accused of spying on behalf of the U.S. government—two of those American citizens, one a permanent U.S. resident—the State Department debuted, or rehashed, one of its slightly sternly worded statements in response.

We now face the ironic, yet all-too-predictable, result of years of U.S. appeasement of Iran in order to secure a global nuclear deal: U.S. military involvement in a proxy war with the Islamic Republic in Yemen.

Two dual US-Iranian citizens have both been sentenced to 10 years in jail in Iran for collaborating with the US government, the state-run Mizan judicial news agency has reported.

Saudi Arabia has admitted that it bombed a funeral in the Yemeni capital that killed more than 140 people last week after initially denying it.

Much has been written about the cold war between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Though this deadly strategic competition has not caused the sweeping disorder in which the Middle East finds itself, it has widened and deepened it.

(CNSNews.com) – The Iranian regime could direct more than $1 billion of the $1.7 billion it received from the Obama administration early this year towards sponsoring terrorism, a defense policy analyst said Thursday.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran accused the United States on Thursday of not complying with the landmark nuclear agreement that took effect in January, and said American credibility would suffer if the accord were not honored.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's chief of staff of the armed forces said Wednesday a $38 billion aid deal between the United States and Israel makes Iran more determined to strengthen its military.

Fifth Fleet spokesman calls interaction ‘unsafe and unprofessional’

Four ships from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps harassed a U.S. destroyer near the Persian Gulf in what the U.S. Navy called an “unsafe and unprofessional” interaction.

The USS Nitze, an Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer, was transiting international waters near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday when the four Iranian vessels approached at high speed and failed to respond to 12 separate radio communications,...

'He lied about the hostages – openly and blatantly – just like he lied about Obamacare,' Trump says.

Republicans are claiming vindication after the State Department confirmed on Thursday that the United States conditioned the release of a $400 million cash payment to Iran on the departure of American prisoners from Tehran.

At a Thursday news briefing, State Department spokesman John Kirby addressed questions about a Wall Street Journal report by explaining that the U.S. held onto the $400 million cash payment until American prisoners were on a plane and safely away from Iran to “retain maximum leverage.” Kirby said the arrangement did not in any way constitute a ransom payment, as President Barack Obama's Republican critics have alleged.

Ploughshares Fund needed cash to spin media, pay off ‘validators’

An organization that played a key role in the White House’s effort to mislead the public and Congress about last summer’s nuclear agreement with Iran requested $750,000 for this campaign from a foundation backed by liberal billionaire George Soros, according to funding documents leaked to the public.

The Ploughshares Fund, a liberal organization cited by top White House officials as a chief architect of the Obama administration’s campaign to push the Iran deal, requested the cash from Soros’s Open Society Foundations so that it could pay off “experts and validators” of the administration’s diplomacy with Iran, according to a funding proposal titled, “Defending Iran Nuclear Diplomacy.”

Now that we know President Obama paid Iran $1.7 billion — $400 million in cold hard cash loaded on a secret flight — to ransom four American captives, comes an obvious question: What did Tehran do with all that money?

To hear Team Obama tell it, Iran’s windfall went for strictly benign purposes.

Just last week, CIA Director John Brennan claimed the money Iran is getting under Obama’s nuclear deal “is being used to support its currency” and “build up its infrastructure.”

We doubt that’s true of all the hundred-billion-plus in sanctions relief — and we know it’s not true of the ransom payout.

The steady drip of disturbing revelations about President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement continues unabated. On Monday, the Associated Press reported that key restrictions on Iran’s uranium enrichment activities will significantly ease after 10 years, long before those restrictions expire after 15 years.

The AP acquired a confidential document, leaked by an anonymous diplomat involved in the Iran nuclear issue, which it described as an add-on agreement in the form of a declaration submitted by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Ben Rhodes, the famed White House spinmeister, is entangled in a growing fight with congressional Republicans — the latest fallout from his bombshell magazine profile two weeks ago.

On Monday, three Republican senators called on President Barack Obama to fire his deputy national security adviser, saying Rhodes had been "disrespectful," "deceptive" and dishonest" in how he had sold the Iran nuclear deal to the public. The White House, meanwhile, said Rhodes will not testify about the deal before a House committee, calling it a “separation of powers” issue.

The ruckus over Rhodes follows a New York Times Magazine profile of the former aspiring fiction writer. The piece implied that Rhodes and his colleagues had misled Americans about the nuclear deal by creating an “echo chamber” of allies who promoted the administration’s talking points and emphasized a timeline that suggested negotiations began later than they really did.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz invited Rhodes to appear before his panel on Tuesday for a session titled “White House Narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal.” But in a letter to Chaffetz, White House counsel W. Neil Eggleston writes that Rhodes will not appear before the committee because it would raise “significant constitutional concerns.”

“The appearance of a senior presidential adviser before Congress threatens the independence and the autonomy of the president, as well as his ability to receive candid advice and counsel in the discharge of his constitutional duties," Eggleston writes.

The letter does not say the Obama administration is invoking “executive privilege” in keeping Rhodes away, but the administration prefers to avoid that term whenever possible. Generally speaking, Obama aides won't say they are asserting the privilege unless further legal steps are involved, such as a subpoena being issued.

In a separate letter to Obama, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) also cite the magazine article as they call for Rhodes' dismissal.

Click here to read the full article.

Picture him as a young man, standing on the waterfront in North Williamsburg, at a polling site, on Sept. 11, 2001, which was Election Day in New York City. He saw the planes hit the towers, an unforgettable moment of sheer disbelief followed by panic and shock and lasting horror, a scene that eerily reminded him, in the aftermath, of the cover of the Don DeLillo novel “Underworld.”

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran test-fired another ballistic missile, the latest in a spate of tests following the implementation of the nuclear deal with world powers earlier this year, according to a report Monday by the country's semi-official Tasnim news agency.

The test-firing of the missile was carried out two weeks ago, the agency quoted Gen. Ali Abdollahi, deputy chief of the armed forces' headquarters, as saying. Tasnim is close to the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard, which is in charge of Iranian ballistic missiles program.

The agency said the missile has a range of 1,250 miles - enough to reach much of the Middle East. Iranian military commanders have described them as a strategic asset and a strong deterrent, capable of hitting U.S. bases or Israel in the event of a strike on Iran.

Iran insists the ballistic tests do not violate the nuclear deal and is likely seeking to demonstrate it is making progress with its ballistic program, despite scaling back on the nuclear program following the deal that led to the lifting of international sanction on Tehran.

Abdollahi said the latest missile tested is very accurate, within 8 meters (yards). "Eight meters means nothing, it means it's without any error," he said. He did not elaborate.

Last month, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the Guard's airspace division, said a new, upgraded version of the Sajjil - a solid fuel high-speed missile with a range of 1,200 miles that was first tested in 2008 - would soon be ready.

In March, Iran test-fired two ballistic missiles - one emblazoned with the phrase "Israel must be wiped out" in Hebrew - that set off an international outcry.

What Iran claimed was a “space launch” was likely the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, sources said.

Iran’s foreign minister said Sunday the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program is “not open to negotiation” with the United States, seemingly spurning an overture from Secretary of State John Kerry.

By launching nuclear-capable missiles Iran has defied a United Nations Security Council resolution that endorsed last year's historic nuclear deal, the United States and its European allies said in a joint letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

Third Illicit Arms Shipment in Recent Weeks Seized in Arabian Sea

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has retrieved thousands of pages of information from devices used by U.S. Navy sailors who were briefly detained in January, the country's state television reported Tuesday.

The report quotes Gen. Ali Razmjou, a naval commander in the powerful Revolutionary Guard, as saying that information filling about 13,000 pages was retrieved from laptops, GPS devices and maps.

Thee Pentagon has previously said Iran only took two SIM cards from satellite phones on the boat.

Razmjou said the move falls within Iran's rights under international regulations, and that the information recovered could be used in "various fields." Iranian authorities returned all the devices taken from the Americans even though it had the right to confiscate them, he said.

Click here to read full article.

Photo Credit: The Daily Caller

Iran's supreme leader has awarded medals to navy commanders for capturing U.S. sailors who entered Iranian territorial waters this month, Iran's state media said on Sunday.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has said Iran should remain wary of its arch-enemy the United States even after a landmark accord over Tehran's nuclear program, awarded the Fath (Victory) medal to the head of the navy of the Revolutionary Guards and four commanders involved in the seizure of two U.S. Navy boats.

Iran has awarded the Fath medal since 1989 to war heroes, military commanders and politicians, especially those linked to the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Read the full story from Reuters.

Since the beginning of 2014, representatives from Israel and Saudi Arabia have had five secret meetings to discuss a common foe, Iran. On Thursday, the two countries came out of the closet by revealing this covert diplomacy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

Photo Credit: U.S. News

It was widely assumed that with the end of sanctions, Iran would “join the world” and become a less repressive state. To take just one example, the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo argued in Huffington Post that the nuclear deal created “the opportunity for Iranian civic actors to enable and empower Iran’s civil society space” and “help the country to become more open, transparent and susceptible to international pressure on issues like the death penalty and the imprisonment of civic actors in Iran.”

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Iran's top leader on Tuesday called for vigilance in ensuring that world powers meet their commitments under a newly implemented nuclear deal while expressing "pessimism" about U.S. intentions, state media reported.

Iran moving to bolster presence in Gaza

Photo Credit: Reuters

Expert: ‘Kerry might as well have wired the money directly into the Revolutionary Guards’ bank accounts'

Iran’s economy is set to receive a substantial boost in the next two years as a result of billions in sanctions relief from the nuclear deal, according to a new forecast, a windfall that could also secure more resources for the Iranian military and its terrorist proxies.

Seven Democratic lawmakers are urging President Obama to impose sanctions on Iran after two ballistic missile tests.

“The United States and our allies must take immediate, punitive action and send a clear message to Iran that violating international laws, treaties and agreements will have serious consequences,” the lawmakers wrote to Obama in a letter this week. “We understand the administration is preparing sanctions against individuals and entities involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program, and we urge you to announce such sanctions without further delay.”

After test explosion, lawmakers, experts warn of illicit nuclear axis

One day after North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb, lawmakers and regional experts are warning that Pyongyang and Tehran are continuing an illicit clandestine partnership enabling the rogue nations to master nuclear technology.

North Korea's fourth nuclear test could have been a crucial step toward Pyongyang developing thermonuclear capability — and a breakthrough for a second country with potential nuclear ambitions, as well.

Iran has established ties to the North Korean nuclear-weapons program. As The Daily Beast notes, Iranian officials, including Iranian nuclear program head Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, were present during North Korea's three previous nuclear tests — in 2006, 2009, and 2013.

Senior U.S. military commanders on Wednesday accused Iran's military of "highly provocative" actions in firing unguided rockets 1,500 yards from ships including an American aircraft carrier.

The USS Harry S. Truman was crossing international waters in the Strait of Hormuz when Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRCGN) conducted a live-fire exercise right nearby, according to a statement.

Iran is once again testing the international community.

A United Nations panel announced this week that Iran violated a U.N. Security Council resolution when it tested a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead in October.

Rep. Pompeo raises serious questions about the IAEA.

The Obama administration is poised to remove sanctions on Iran as soon as January, after the United Nations's nuclear regulatory body—the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—released a report concluding the country had pursued a nuclear weapons program until 2009, but had not done so since then.

Iran tested a new medium-range ballistic missile last month in a breach of two U.N. Security Council resolutions, two U.S. officials said on Monday.

The officials, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said the test was held on Nov. 21. One of them said the missile traveled within Iranian territory.

Photo Credit: AP

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released its long-awaited final report on Iran’s alleged past nuclear weapons work on December 2. This report is likely to be the Agency’s last word on its investigation into what it calls “the possible military dimensions [PMD] to Iran’s nuclear program.” The Agency found that Iran had a “coordinated” program to develop a nuclear weapon through the end of 2003 and that some of the work on nuclear weapons continued into 2009. Specifically, the IAEA found that Iran developed several components of a nuclear weapon and undertook related research and testing.

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Votes to continue ‘Death to America’ campaign

Iran announced over the weekend that it is beginning to implement a blockade of all U.S. goods into the country following an order by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has directed the country’s government to form an “economy of resistance.”

The logical endgame of President Obama’s Iran policy and his “roundtable” approach to Syria has always been to offer American protection for Iranian missile shipments to Hezbollah. Sounds crazy, right? It is. But after all, as the administration’s hard-nosed diplomats will tell you, there needs to be a compromise in Syria to end the killing, which means that Iran must preserve its legitimate core interest—namely, its “link” to Lebanon, where Hezbollah has tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel.

Iran considered pursuing a nuclear deterrent when it began its nuclear program in the 1980s, during an eight-year war with Iraq, a former president has been quoted as saying.

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's comments comes at a sensitive moment, as Iran implements an agreement reached with world powers in July aimed at curbing its nuclear program, to allay Western fears it was trying to build an atomic bomb.

One of the biggest mysteries of the Iran nuclear deal has been solved — but the answer may complicate the efforts of the US and its allies to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. 

The notion that the Iranian nuclear agreement might lead Iran to moderate was always a long-term bet. And the Obama Administration’s argument that even without that moderation an Iran with a nuclear weapon (or close to one) was far more dangerous than a Tehran without one is a logical and rational conclusion.

But what is clear now is that Islamic Republic regime is not moderating its repressive and authoritarian character but consolidating it. Here’s why.

The Iranian government is now demanding the finished nuclear deal be re-opened for negotiation, again.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded earlier this month that sanctions be lifted entirely, rather than simply suspended as agreed in the nuclear deal signed in July.

The political fallout from the Iran deal is coming to Nevada.

Not because it will be front and center in the U.S. Senate race as Rep. Joe Heck opposed it and former Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto supported it. And not because it will be a focal point in races for Congress, especially Rep. Cresent Hardy’s seat and perhaps for Heck’s seat, too.

But because Nevada is about to become one of a number of states where forces opposed to the deal are going to try to install on the November ’16 ballot a question about whether Carson City should be barred from investing funds in places that sponsor terrorism – i.e. Iran.

Photo Credit: Washington Times

Photo Credit: AP

As Congress reconvenes this week, both House and Senate are considering the most important security legislation that our country has seen this century – the agreement negotiated by the Obama administration on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

The American people overwhelmingly oppose this agreement. However, even before the actual debate begins in Congress the media and the political class want to declare a winner. Unfortunately, in typical Washington fashion there would likely be one winner – insider politics - and one big loser, the American people. 

Photo Credit: AP

As the White House secured their last needed vote to block a veto override in the Senate on the nuclear deal, Iran unleashed a double-pronged attack: vowing to block inspector access to some sites, and vowing to continue preparations to destroy Israel.

With Congress due to vote by Sept. 17 on the Iran nuclear deal, there’s a warning worth revisiting. It goes like this: The president is pushing a historic nuclear agreement, saying it will stop a terror-sponsoring tyranny from getting nuclear weapons. And up pipes the democratically elected leader of one of America’s closest allies, to say this nuclear deal is mortal folly. He warns that it is filled with concessions more likely to sustain and embolden the nuclear-weapons-seeking despotism than to disarm it.

As he weighed whether to support President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, Representative Donald Norcross was showered with the sort of attention rarely shown to junior members of the U.S. Congress.

Photo Credit: Foreign Policy

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Only one in three Americans approve of his handling of Iran
• Approval of handling of race relations ticks down below 50%
• Though improved, approval of handling of immigration still low

Photo Credit: Getty

Sen. Chuck Schumer’s loyalty called into question by progressives; advocacy group calls discourse a ‘slap in the face’ to his long years of service

Days after announcing his opposition to the Iranian nuclear deal, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer has faced an onslaught of allegations from progressive critics who resorted to classically anti-Semitic allegations of disloyalty and treason. The Anti-Defamation League criticized the accusations Monday, telling The Times of Israel that such accusations are a “slap in the face” to Schumer’s long years of service to the United States.

While Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama do their best to paper over the brutality of the Iranian regime and force through a nuclear agreement, Iran’s religious leader has another issue on his mind: The destruction of Israel.

Photo Credit: The Daily Beast

A House Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee came out against the Iran nuclear deal Wednesday, as the White House seeks to gather Democratic support. 

Rep. Grace Meng (N.Y.) said the "deal before us now is simply too dangerous for the American people." 

"I strongly believe the world could and should have a better deal than that set forth in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which I will therefore oppose," said Meng, who is a member of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East. 

President Obama promised that his nuclear deal with Iran would not be “based on trust” but rather “unprecedented verification.” Now it turns out Obama’s verification regime is based on trust after all — trust in two secret side agreements negotiated exclusively between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that apparently no one (including the Obama administration) has seen.

Should a final deal emerge from the Iran nuclear talks, now nearing a June 30 deadline, Congress will expect reports from the President every six months on whether Iran is in compliance. These reports would not be optional. They would be required under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, signed into law last month by President Obama.

Photo Credit: Associated Press

The administration’s policies are leading to a dangerously unstable world order.

A running theme of pro-Israel Democrats is that President Obama’s approach to achieving a nuclear deal with Iran is consistent with his “unshakable” support for the Jewish state. 

Western powers are offering Tehran high-tech reactors under a proposed nuclear agreement, a confidential document says, but a defiant speech by Iran's supreme leader less than a week before a negotiating deadline casts doubt on whether he's willing to make the necessary concessions to seal a deal.

The talks, which resumed Wednesday in Vienna on restraining any Iranian efforts to make atomic arms, appeared to be behind schedule judging by the draft document obtained by The Associated Press.

In defense of the Iran nuclear talks, Obama administration officials have made a number of unlikely claims, including the repeated proposition that under the current Tehran regime Iran’s nuclear program could be transformed into something “exclusively peaceful.” But one of the most bizarre statements yet came just last weekend from Secretary of State John Kerry. Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Kerry said he hopes an Iran nuclear deal could have a “positive influence” on North Korea.

If the White House doesn’t pull the plug on negotiations, Congress must.

The most frustrating part for a rational observer of the P5+1 negotiations with Iran is this: There is little doubt that Iran is lying, and will continue to lie, but that doesn’t seem to matter to those negotiating with it. 

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Photo Credit: JCPA