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Iran Threat Highlights U.N. Opening

The threat from Iran is highlighting America’s interest in the opening of the 2018-2019 UN session.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,, an Iranian media outlet close to the country’s Revolutionary Guards published a video Tuesday threatening the capitals of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)  with missile attacks, further raising regional tensions after a weekend militant attack on a military parade in Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blames Saudi Arabi and Abu Dhabi for a recent attack in Ahvaz which resulted in 25 deaths and 60 people wounded.  No evidence has been presented for the charge.

The Revolutionary Guards controls Iran’s missile program, which is capable of striking American forces in the region, as well as the territory of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UAE.

Iran’s influence in the Middle East grew substantially during the Obama presidency. Aided by weapons from Russia and funding from China, it has gained extensive influence in the region.  In a meeting in New York before the U.N. session , President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Hassan Rouhani of Iran met and emphasized that “there are no obstacles on the way of developing and deepening of cooperation between the two countries and that they will make every effort to develop this cooperation in the interests of both nations.” Turkey, as a member of NATO and a putative but increasingly distant U.S. ally, is disappointing other western nations in its warming relations with Tehran.

In his address to the U.N., President Trump voiced concern over Iran’s actions:

“Iran’s leaders sew chaos, death and disruption. They do not respect their neighbors, borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, they plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond. The Iranian people are rightly outraged that their leaders have embezzled billions of dollars from the treasury, seized valuable portions and looted the religious endowments to line their own pockets and to send their proxies to wage war. Iran’s neighbors have paid a heavy toll for the agenda of aggression and expansion.
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“That is why so many countries in the Middle East strongly supported at my decision to withdraw the United States from the horrible 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimpose nuclear sanctions. The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran’s leaders. In the year since the deal has been reached, the military budget grew nearly 40%.

“The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism and fund habit and slaughter in Syria and Yemen. The United States has launched a campaign of economic pressure to deny the regime the funds it needs to advance its bloody last month. We began re-imposing hard-hitting nuclear sanctions that have been lifted under the Iran deal. Additional sanctions will resume November 5, and more will follow. We are working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially.

“We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants “Death to America” and threatens Israel with annihilation. They cannot possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth, we just cannot do it. We ask all nations to isolate Iran’s regime as long as its aggression continues and we ask all nations to support Iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny.”

Iranian threats and actions have had the unintended effect of bringing Israel closer to its traditional rivals Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states closer together.  Washington’s relations with Saudi Arabia have improved dramatically as well, as regional nations look to the U.S. for protection from Iran.

Photo: Turkish-Iranian meeting before U.N. opening (Iranian Government photo)

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Iran’s People Lose Patience with Regime

In an interview with a New York Post  reporter Eli Lake, Iran’s Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize wrinning human rights author, has called for the end of her nation’s regime. After years of attempting to reform the nation’s government from within, she now believes that the only way to effectuate change is through a regime change.

Ebadi had previously been  reluctant to call for the end of the regime, but now believes it is the only way to restore freedom.  She didn’t advocate for external military intervention, and called for the Iranian people to rise up.  According to Lake, her position is a rebuke to Western progressives who still pine for Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, to deliver on the reforms he promised in his 2013 and 2017 campaigns.

Human Rights Watch notes that “Authorities in the security apparatus and Iran’s judiciary continued to target journalists, online media activists, and human rights defenders in an ongoing crackdown, in blatant disregard of international and domestic legal standards…Iranian courts, and particularly the revolutionary courts, regularly fell short of providing fair trials and used confessions obtained under torture as evidence in court. Authorities routinely restrict detainees’ access to legal counsel, particularly during the investigation period… Authorities continued to restrict freedoms of expression, association and assembly and prosecuted dozens of journalists, online media activists, and trade unionists on charges of ‘acting against national security,’ ‘propaganda against the state,’ and ‘assembly and collusion to disrupt national security,’merely for exercising their legitimate rights.”

On August 29, Ali Mojtahedzadeh, the lawyer of six administrators of channels on the social media application Telegram who were close to reformists arrested before the May presidential elections, told Ilna news agency that Branch 15 of Tehran’s revolutionary court had sentenced his clients to three to five years in prison.

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Despite a significant attempt by the Iranian people to reform their government in the 2009 “Green Revolution,” the Obama Administration chose not to support the movement. Gil Hoffman, writing for the Jerusalem Post reports  that Israeli Deputy Minister for Public Policy Michael Oren believes  “The Obama administration’s lack of support for the Green Revolution was part of a pattern in which it did not hold Iran accountable for any provocation. It would seem it was part of a general approach that began in Obama’s first week in office in 2009 of wanting to reach a deal with Iran at pretty much any cost…. Among the Iranian provocations ignored by the Obama administration, Oren listed the crackdown on the protesters, the kidnapping of Americans, having their missile boats provocatively approach American destroyers, trying to assassinate him and his Saudi counterpart in downtown Washington, the failure to follow through on a red line Obama imposed on Syrian dictator Bashar Assad using chemical weapons and Iranian-backed Hezbollah smuggling massive amounts of cocaine into the US.

In January, the largest protests against the Tehran regime spread across Iran. In contrast to the Obama Administration, the U.S. State Department’s  official position stated that “The Iranian people have been expressing their desire for dignified treatment, an end to corruption, improved transparency, and increased economic opportunities. Protestors have also demanded that the regime stop diverting the nation’s wealth to fund military adventurism abroad. Unfortunately, the government continues to imprison and kill those who are brave enough to venture into the street. It is limiting the flow of information into Iran, restricting free speech, and attempting to prevent the outside world from observing its own repression. We support these legitimate aspirations of the Iranian people, and call on the government to allow the free exchange of ideas and information. All of us should be able to enjoy the same basic economic and political freedoms, including the right to peaceful demonstration. We condemn in the strongest possible terms the deaths to date and the arrests of at least one thousand Iranians. We have ample authorities to hold accountable those who commit violence against protestors, contribute to censorship, or steal from the people of Iran. To the regime’s victims, we say: You will not be forgotten.”

U.S. State Dept. map