Categories
Quick Analysis

OUTLAW REGIME: A CHRONICLE OF IRAN’S DESTRUCTIVE ACTIVITIES

A new report  from the U.S. State Department outlines Iran’s aggressive activities. The document outlines “… the magnitude of the Islamic Republic’s destructive activities at home and abroad.” Many of the activities highlighted have occurred recently, while others date back to the early days of the revolution. As the analysis makes clear, the one constant is that the Iranian regime will do whatever it takes to maintain its grip on power and spread its revolutionary ideology. The New York Analysis of Policy and Government presents the Executive Summary.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps

The regime’s primary tool to execute its aggressive policies since 1979 has been the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is the most powerful conglomerate in Iran, spreading and consolidating its control over much of Iranian life. Its navy regularly threatens freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf while its Aerospace Force directs the country’s ballistic missile program in defiance of Security Council resolutions. Its Ground Forces are deployed abroad to bolster the Assad regime and its Basij paramilitary force is mobilized at home to surveil and harass ordinary Iranians. Finally, its extra-territorial IRGC Qods Force (IRGC-QF) leads the Islamic Republic’s destabilizing support for proxies and terrorist groups.

State Sponsored Terrorism

The Islamic Republic’s support for terrorism [has been primarily driven by the IRGC.] Since 1979, Iran has made it a policy of state to actively direct, facilitate, and carry out terrorist activity globally. Unlike almost any other country, the Islamic Republic has supported terrorism within its own military and intelligence apparatuses: the IRGC-QF and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Today, the IRGC-QF is active across the Middle East and has plotted or carried out terrorist attacks in five out of seven continents. Where it is unable or unwilling to act directly, the Iranian regime has mastered the use of terrorist proxy groups like Lebanese Hizballah, Palestine Islamic Jihad, the Bahraini AlAshtar Brigades and the Iraqi Kata’ib Hizballah to conduct terrorist attacks.

Missile Development

Iran’s development of ballistic missiles…pose a critical threat to regional security. Iran has the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East and it is continuing to explore multiple pathways to expand its longer-range missile capabilities. Recognizing this threat, the UN Security Council had previously worked to impose tough limitations on Iran’s proliferation activities. However, this progress was rolled back following the adoption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, which failed to address Iran’s ballistic missile program. With a weaker nonproliferation regime to constrain its activity, Iran has continued to defy international scrutiny and its pace of missile launches and tests has not diminished following the implementation of the JCPOA.

Illegal Financial Acitivities

The Islamic Republic’s [has engaged in] illicit financing activities, which undermine the integrity and security of the global financial system. The Iranian regime relies on opaque and fraudulent financing activities to fund its proxies and support its proliferation of ballistic missiles and other weapons. In the last year, the IRGC-QF has been exposed for using front companies to move funds, procure restricted materials and technologies, exploit currency exchange networks in neighboring countries, and produce counterfeit currency.

Maritime Aggression

Capabilities in bed will not count in case your man’s penis just viagra low price isn’t big enough to be able to stimulate the growth of hair that had thinned from androgenic alopecia. Polyester webbing slings with single and double ply are manufactured by using this herb so that the person can experience a very smooth viagra vs cialis and happy love making session. Aside from skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most convenient form cipla tadalafil of Kamagra ED treatment. This medicinal drug has been approved by the FDA to treat the condition. online prescription for viagra ran [also poses a] threat to maritime security in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The Islamic Republic has repeatedly threatened to interfere with freedom of navigation and international shipping in these areas. In the Persian Gulf, the IRGC’s naval forces have engaged in numerous unsafe and unprofessional incidents with naval vessels and have a history of illegally detaining U.S. and U.K. sailors. In the Red Sea, Iran-backed Houthi militants have attacked coalition warships and Saudi commercial vessels. Iran has also engaged in the illicit shipping of arms to other regions. In 2010, for example, Nigerian officials uncovered an arms cache on board a commercial vessel from Iran.

Cyber Attacks

The Islamic Republic’s [has engaged in] malign behavior in cyberspace. Iran has increasingly conducted a series of cyberattacks involving surveillance and sabotage affecting critical infrastructure, financial and commercial entities, and educational institutions. It has also deployed its cyber capabilities to identify and silence critics domestically and spread its disinformation campaigns abroad.

Human Rights VIolations

The Islamic Republic’s [is guilty of] repeated and systemic abuse of human rights in violation of international laws and norms. The Islamic Republic persecutes civil society activists and marginalizes ethnic and religious minorities. The regime also denies its citizens due process, regularly falling short of its own legal standards. Its prisons are notorious for mistreatment and torture, and its use of capital punishment is excessive and extends to minors. Beyond its borders, the Islamic Republic and its proxies have committed numerous human rights abuses, including targeting innocent civilians in Syria and arbitrarily detaining Sunnis in Iraq.

Environmental Degradation

[There is an] enduring and increasingly irreversible tragedy of environmental degradation at the hands of the Islamic Republic’s self-serving leaders. Following decades of misguided agricultural policies and IRGC-driven dam projects, Iran is inching ever closer to an environmental crisis. The regime’s failure to respond to worsening environmental conditions has led to a significant depletion of Iran’s water resources and forced the migration of millions of Iranians. Instead of addressing these existential issues, the Islamic Republic has responded with force against those calling for reform.

Photo: Iranian Air Defense missile system (Iranian Military)

Categories
Quick Analysis

U.S. Faces Military Threat from Russia, China & Iran in Latin America

As Moscow’s army and Navy invaded the Ukraine last week, Russian warships again docked in Cuba, part of President Putin’s goal of reconstituting the influence of the former Soviet Union in some Latin American nations.

Moscow is not the only anti-American nation to make military advances on our southern border.

China has spent vast sums on developing both military and civilian infrastructure facilities in the region. Much of Beijing’s investment has been in strategic infrastructure, including port facilities on both the East and West sides of the Panama Canal, and, as expert Dr. Evan Ellis has noted, airport facility in Freeport, The Bahamas, just 65 miles from the USA, and a deep sea port in Suriname.

Familiarizing its military with the region, China has deployed peacekeeping forces to Haiti, and a naval hospital ship to Cuba. Ellis notes that “The PRC also conducts significant interactions with the militaries of virtually all of the Caribbean nations with which it has diplomatic relations.  A series of senior level Caribbean military leaders have visited China in the past two years…At a lower level, people-to-people military interactions have included inviting uniformed Caribbean military personnel and defense civilians for professional education trips to the PRC…The PLA donated $3.5 million in non-lethal military equipment to the Jamaica defense Force in 2010….The PLA is also reported to have personnel at Soviet-era intelligence collection facilities in Bejucal, Lourdes, and Santiago de Cuba…”

The U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission reports that Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia and Cuba now maintain strong ties to the Chinese military “through a high number of official visits, military officer exchanges, port calls, and limited arms sales.”  Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have begun to buy Chinese arms and military equipment, including radar and aircraft.  Bolivia has signed a military cooperation agreement with China.
levitra generika Psychological or emotional problems should be treated within the partners themselves. This is one of the most commonly occurring disorders in the endocrine system that affects almost 5-10% of the viagra sans prescription females that are of reproductive age within the range of 12-45 years of age. Some drugs such as antidepressants, blood pressure medicine lowers men’s levitra no prescription http://davidfraymusic.com/events/southam-hall-ottawa/ libido or testosterone level. How Medication and Therapy can treat ED? Doctors find that most probably, the things that you do well in the viagra samples preventions, you will be less and less.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has also been active in supporting forces hostile to U.S. interests.

Despite all of those facts, and the ongoing repression of freedom in Cuba and Venezuela, the White House has chosen to remain oblivious. When President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, delivered the 2014 Worldwide Threat Assessment to Congress, he made no mention of Russian, Chinese and Iranian military moves.

The willful blindness of U.S. officials, symbolized by President Obama’s handshake with Raul Castro, extends to a number of elected officials.  Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) has long been friendly with both the Castro regime in Havana and the successors to Venezuela’s socialist strongman Hugo Chavez.  NYC’s Mayor, Bill DiBlasio, was an ardent supporter of Nicaragua’s Sandinista movement, which had, during the 1980’s, invited the Soviet military onto its shores.

As all of this has occurred, indeed, has accelerated, as the White House continues to defund the U.S. military.