COMMENTARIES

In August 2016, shortly after I was arrested by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, one of my interrogators asked me what I thought of the antagonism between Iran and the United States. I told him frankly that like many Americans, I did not believe that Iran and the United States should be enemies. I said that I thought President Barack Obama should visit Tehran and turn a new page in the relationship, just as President Richard Nixon had done by going to Beijing in 1972. The interrogator sneered. The U.S. president would never be welcome in his country, he told me.  Read More 


Iran ‘executes 100 prisoners in brutal death sentence killing spree’

ByAnna Savva, 21 AUG 2020

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES: Activists inside Iran made claims in reports of a state-ordered execution spree by the dictatorship as its economy crumbles during the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week the Iranian regime’s execution spree continued unabated, The National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) say, while calling for a UN-lead investigation amid claims Iran has the world’s highest execution rate.

It estimates since the beginning of this year alone at least 100 death sentences, most through hanging, have been carried out by the Iranian regime’s judiciary – many of them political prisoners and women…….

“Iran policy expert Professor Ivan Sascha Sheehan said: “US officials have an opportunity to open a new front in the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign by emphasising human rights and pushing for a UN led investigation into the regime’s atrocities.” Read More


Don’t Let Iran Blow Up the U.N. Security Council

BY RICHARD GOLDBERG | AUGUST 15, 2020, 1:38 AM

The U.N. Security Council rejected on Aug. 14 a resolution that would have indefinitely extended the United Nations’ conventional arms embargo on Iran. That sets up one of the most consequential diplomatic decisions of the 21st century for the United Kingdom and France: whether to preserve the unique powers of the Security Council’s permanent members or upend 75 years of multilateralism to save a nuclear deal with Iran that begins to expire in less than 75 days. Read More