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Clinton Interview with BBC Persian Service
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton interview with Bahman Kalbasi on Oct. 26, 2011: QUESTION: Secretary Clinton, thank you very much for sitting down with the BBC. And the response to our call for questions has been overwhelming. The thousands of viewers we have across the Persian speaking…
Three Congressional Testimonies on Iran
Congressional testimonies on Oct. 26, 2011 before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management. Dr. Lawrence J. Korb, Center for American Progress Action Fund It is imperative that the United…
Marine Commander Links 1983 Bomb and 2011 Plot
The following is an excerpt from testimony by Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, USMC (retired) on Oct. 26 before the Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Iranian Terror Operations on American Soil. Geraghty was commander of the Marine peacekeepers in Lebanon.
October 23, 2011 marked the twenty-eighth…
Key Dates for Iran's Parliamentary Election
This is a timeline of the key dates for Iran's Parliamentary Election: December 24-31, 2011 Candidate Registration period January 1-25, 2012 Candidate Vetting period Last week of January Official announcement of vetted candidates February 22-March 1, 2012…
Clinton on Iranian Plot
The following is an excerpt from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s interview with NBC’s Today Show on Oct. 12 about Iran’s alleged terrorism plot. QUESTION: Let’s talk about the news of the day, this plot by some members of the Quds Force to take out the Saudi ambassador at a…
U.S. Comments on U.N. Human Rights Report
The following is a Press Statement from the State Department on the U.N. Human Rights Report:We welcome the first interim report by the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, and take note of his assessment regarding the Iranian government’s “pattern of systemic…
Iran’s Massive Banking Scandal
Kevan Harris What’s the origin of the Islamic Republic’s biggest banking scandal? The financial conglomerate Amir Mansour Arya Investment Development Company allegedly procured several letters of credit from domestic banks totaling $2.8 billion--far above the company’s available collateral. …
U.N. Report on “Systemic” Human Rights Abuses
The U.N. Special Rapporteur for Iran released a report on Oct. 15, 2011 detailing human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic. The following is a key excerpt, with a link to the full report at the end. A number of individuals and organizations provided the Special Rapporteur with first-…
Treasury Testimony on U.S. Sanctions Strategy
The following is testimony by Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on Oct. 13, 2011:Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Shelby, and distinguished members of the Committee: Thank you…
State Department Testimony: Sanctions One Year Later
The following is testimony by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman before the Senate Banking on October 13, 2011: Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Senator Shelby, Distinguished Members of the Committee: thank you for inviting me to appear before you today to discuss the…
Iran Reacts to Allegations of U.S. Plot
The Iranian regime has lashed out at the United States over the Obama administration’s claims that Tehran was behind a plot to attack U.S., Saudi and Israeli targets in Washington and Argentina. The following are key quotes from top leaders in Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "If U.S.…
U.S. Sanctions Iranian Commercial Airline
The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced today the designation of Iranian commercial airline Mahan Air pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224 for providing financial, material and technological support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF). Based in Tehran, Mahan Air…
U.S. Imposes New Sanctions for Iranian Plot
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the designation of five individuals, including four senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) officers connected to a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States Adel Al-Jubeir, while he…
Fate of the Green Movement leaders
Geneive Abdo Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were put under house arrest in early February. What is their status eight months later? Mousavi was taken to a very small apartment and is under guard 24 hours a day, according to statements by his wife about one month…
Challenging the Balance of Power: Ahmadinejad vs. Parliament
Interview with Hosein Ghazian Hosein Ghazian is an Iranian sociologist and former pollster who is currently a visiting scholar at Syracuse University. This is the eleventh in a series on parliamentary elections due in March 2012: How has parliament’s political role—and authority--…
Raucous Election: Politicians on the Record
Semira N. Nikou This is the tenth in a series on parliamentary elections due in March 2012: Iran’s 2012 parliamentary elections will help define the country’s political course for the next four years. The campaign is already heating up, as political groups begin to mobilize in…
Clinton Blasts Iran's Human Rights
Press Statement Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton The United States is deeply concerned by reports of the Iranian government’s continued repression of its people. Despite statements from Iran’s Supreme Leader and President claiming support for the rights and freedoms of Iranian citizens and…
Death sentence on Christian leader Yousef Nadarkhani
An Iranian court has imposed the death sentence on Yousef Nadarkhani, a 34-year-old protestant preacher, for apostasy after he repeatedly refused to recant his Christian faith. The verdict has generated international condemnation this week. The following are excerpts from the verdict and U.S. and…
"Suffering" in Iran Nearly Doubles to 26%
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup poll reports "suffering" in Iran has nearly doubled, up from 14% in 2008 to 26% in 2011. One factor that may play into this increase is the lack of good jobs, as Gallup finds unemployment in the country above 15% and underemployment exceeding 35%. …
Parliament’s Evolving Role
Interview with Ali Reza Eshraghi Ali Reza Eshraghi was a senior editor at several of Iran’s reformist dailies. He is currently editor of Iran programs at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and a Rotary World Peace fellow in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of…
Youth Game-Changers in Elections
Kevan Harris This is the eighth in a series on parliamentary elections due in March 2012: What role does Iran’s youth play in elections? After the 1979 revolution, the voting age was lowered to 15 which automatically made youth important in elections. But since the mid-1990s, Iranian…
Obama on Release of American Hikers
Statement from the President on the Release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal I welcome the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal from detention in Iran and am very pleased that they are being reunited with their loved ones. The tireless advocacy of their families over these two years has…
Women Struggle in Parliament
Interview with Fatemeh HaghighatjooBy Semira N. Nikou Dr. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo is a former member of Iran’s parliament (2000-2004). She is currently a visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. This is the seventh in a series on parliamentary elections due…
Revolutionary Guards Soar in Parliament
Mehrzad Boroujerdi and Kourosh Rahimkhani This is the sixth in a series on parliamentary elections due in March 2012: The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was established to protect domestic security, but the elite military wing has always had an implicit political…
Intelligence on Iran: Reliable?
The following report about intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program was published on Sept. 15 by the Atlantic Council. The link to the full report is at the bottom: For a country that has been accumulating nuclear know-how since the Eisenhower administration, Iran has hardly been…
Clerics Plummet in Parliament
Interview with Yasmin Alem Yasmin Alem is an international development specialist. She is the author of Duality by Design: The Iranian Electoral System published by the International Foundation of Electoral Systems. This is the fifth in a series on parliamentary elections due in…
Iran's Conservatives: The Headstrong New Bloc
Shaul Bakhash This is the fourth in a series on parliamentary elections due in March 2012: In preparation for the 2012 parliamentary election, Iran's diverse conservative parties are already forging a strategy to marginalize or even exclude their principal opponents, especially…
Iran’s Growing State of Civil Disobedience
Alireza Nader The Iranian regime faces a threat even more daunting than the 2009 Green Movement protests: a disparate yet potentially powerful civil disobedience movement motivated not just by politics, but by environmental, economic, and social issues. From demonstrations over the drying…
Factoids on Parliamentary Election
Semira N. Nikou This is the third in a series on parliamentary elections due in March 2012: Iran’s first parliament was formed after the Constitutional Revolution in 1906. Its current parliament was created by a new constitution written after the 1979 revolution ousted the…
History of Iran’s Parliaments
This is the second in a series on parliamentary elections due in March 2012: First parliament (1980-1984)Speaker: Yadollah Sahabi (for one month in mid-1980); Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1980 to 1984) Political trends: The first parliament was the most eclectic. It included deputies from…