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Culture wars USA 

No laughing matter: Europe’s appeasement of Iran

Melanie, , ,

Remarks this week about Iran by US National Security Adviser John Bolton contained some of the most ferocious language ever used by an American administration about a foreign state. Bolton told the Iranian regime: “If you cross us, our allies or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay. Let my message today be clear: ‘We are watching, and we will come after you.’” Earlier this year, the US pulled out of the nuclear deal…

Iran Global conflict 

The Iran opportunity and European infamy

Melanie, , ,

A senior Iranian official has accused Israel of stealing its clouds. Yes, you read that right. Clouds as in the sky. Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, has said: “Israel and another country in the region have joint teams which work to ensure clouds entering Iranian skies are unable to release rain. On top of that, we are facing the issue of cloud and snow theft.” His evidence? A survey showing that all mountainous areas higher than 2,200 meters between Afghanistan and the Mediterranean were…

Israel 

The Iranian drone

Melanie

Did Iran yesterday openly launch its war of extermination against Israel? The sequence of events, according to former IDF spokesman Lt Cl Peter Lerner, was this. Yesterday morning an Iranian drone, an advanced model with stealth capabilities, penetrated into Israel through the border from Jordan. It was intercepted after about a minute and a half in Israeli territory by an IDF attack helicopter. In the immediate aftermath, the Israel Air Force conducted a targeted strike and destroyed the mobile command vehicle that guided the drone. On its way home, an…

Iran Global conflict 

The Iranian uprising and Europe’s shameful silence

Melanie

The Iranian uprising and Europe’s silence In all the years of anxiety over what to do about the greatest sponsor of global terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the hope has been that the Iranian people would overthrow the brutal theocracy that has subjugated them. The past week has seen the most significant popular uprising in Iran since the regime took power in 1979. Mass demonstrations erupted in an unprecedented spread across the country. At least 22 demonstrators have been killed and more than 1000 arrested. Now the head of…

Global conflict 

The Iranian uprising

Melanie

What’s happening in Iran is of the greatest significance. Thousands of anti-regime demonstrators have taken to the streets now for four days in protest. Reports suggest that at least twelve people have been killed by government troops. It is hard to over-estimate the courage of those demonstrators. The scale and scope of these demonstrations across Iran is unprecedented: estimates suggest they have been occurring in at least 30 cities, including some places long deemed to be the regime’s power base. With President Hassan Rouhani acknowledging economic “grievances”, a “lack of…

Israel Videos 

Why does Jack Straw shill for Iran?

Melanie

On today’s BBC TV Daily Politics show I took on the former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who supports the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, maintains that it is working and claims that Iran is not in breach of any of its provisions. I did not agree… and I asked him why he had turned into such a cheerleader for the Iranian regime. You can watch the exchange here. I was a studio guest for the duration of the show. You can watch the whole thing here.

Global conflict 

The Iranian symptom of the west’s auto-immune disease

Melanie

People are understandably preoccupied with the threat from North Korea and what to do about it. But with the polyvalent perversity that characterises our modern age – afflicted as it is by the political equivalent of auto-immune disease in which it seeks to destroy its allies while embracing its mortal enemies – many in the west continue to downplay or ignore the far greater threat to the world from North Korea’s partner in crime, the Islamic Republic of Iran. It’s not just that, as with North Korea today so with…

USA 

Has Trump been suckered into empowering Iran?

Melanie

There was always a terrible risk that in prioritising the defeat of Isis the US would end up empowering Iran – whose proxy, Syria’s President Assad, is an Isis foe. This is precisely what Israel is concerned has now happened in Syria, where the Israelis fear Iran is now establishing a beachhead. They also fear that Iran is building an arms factories in southern Lebanon, a country controlled by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah. This is why Israel opposed the Syrian ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia which perpetuates Iran’s military…

Global conflict 

Why the US should withdraw from the Iran deal now

Melanie

John Bolton, America’s former ambassador to the UN, says the US must now withdraw from the disastrous Iran deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that was brokered in 2015 by President Obama and the other permanent members on the UN Security Council plus Germany. The US State Department has just certified, for the second time during the Trump administration, that Iran is complying with the deal. I’m told this provoked absolute fury by President Trump. He felt he had no option, though, but to sign…