We need sanctions against Iran
Meir Javedanfar

Winston Churchill once described Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." No one yet has come up with an analogy to describe the difficulty of understanding and dealing with Iran.

With its thousands of years of history and...

Israel is about to celebrate its 62nd birthday.

Many Israelis will be asking themselves, how far have we come since 1948?

The interview below is a good indication.

It was recorded when the United Arab Republic (UAR) was about to be formed. Egypt was at the height of its...

Relations between Washington and Kabul have become more tense recently, after two public attacks by Afghan President Hamid Karzai against western involvement in his country.

Just what has got into the Afghan president? Why is he attacking US President Barack Obama so much, when, in fact, compared to George Bush,...

After months of dilly-dallying, the Chinese government has finally decided to abandon its policy of "negotiations only" with regards to the Iranian nuclear program.

According to Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, China has now officially agreed to enter talks with Western powers about a new UN resolution...

Obama's victory in the health care debate is not only a domestic achievement for the U.S. president, but also a boost to his standing abroad, especially in the Middle East. This will be important as the president moves forward with both Israel and Iran.

Until recently, both Tehran and Jerusalem...

For some in Israel, the issues of Jewish settlements and Iran's nuclear program are not connected. But for the United States, they are becoming more and more intertwined.

The factor that links them together is American concerns about casualties in the region.

According to Mark Perry writing in

The Dubai affair is still raging on, with no sign of abating. British police are currently in Israel investigating the alleged forging of their country's passport. The Australian government also seems to be up in arms about the affair.

The reaction of these governments is understandable....

This morning, new evidence came to light, which questions whether Israel's secret service, the Mossad, was behind the assassination of the Hamas commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai.

According to a new report from Reuters "Dubai has identified 15 new suspects in the assassination of a...

Several recent developments suggest that Iran's nuclear programme is not for peaceful purposes, as the Tehran regime claims, but is intended to develop a bomb.

First was the exposure of the secret enrichment site at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom. The site, which was recently exposed by the...

The numbers of opposition supporters at yesterday's rally in Iran were not as high as expected. In fact, those who were on the side of the government seemed to have greatly outnumbered those who were against.

However this does not mean that the campaign of opposition is over. Far from...

Iran's nuclear programme was started under the Shah. He wanted the bomb to transform Iran into a Middle East superpower. For many Iranians, however, the real need for nuclear armament was most keenly felt after Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians during the eight-year war between...

Unless Iran's supreme leader changes course in his internal policies, the domestic stability of his regime in 2010 is going to be more fragile than in 2009.

"Tishe be reeshe zadan" is a famous expression in Persian. It literally means hitting the roots with an ax. It is used to...

The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi, who was killed when a motorcycle bomb was detonated outside his home, does not bode well for the Iranian government.

If his assassins were from foreign intelligence agencies or opposition groups, it would mean that the security of Iran's...

For any self respecting analyst, predicting the murky and surprising world of Iranian politics could be very dangerous and risky. It could ruin reputations.

However, in my opinion, you are not much of an analyst if you just keep on analyzing what happened. Because anybody is wiser after the...

The recent episode with the Turkish ambassador has made Israel into a laughing stock around the world, including among Iran's intellectual elite, a majority of whom oppose Khamenei.

Failure to address Israel's diplomatic shortcomings may mean that Iran's supreme leader, despite his country's military inferiority, may actually win the...

The people of Iran want their country to have a nuclear bomb, for defensive purposes. They want to live free of fear of weapons of mass destruction, such as those used against them by Saddam in the mid-1980s.

Ahmadinejad and Khamenei want the bomb to threaten Israel and to isolate...

Who could have been behind the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist today?

And what are the implications for Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei?

This article looks into these questions.

In an article yesterday, the Tehran based Parsine news reported that in protest to the disturbances in Iran, especially the attack against Ayatollah Khatami's Ashura sermon, the family of Ayatollah Khomeini may be moving to the city of Najaf in Iraq.

The question is: how much power...

An Iranian-style intifada seems to be in the making.

At the beginning of the current period of opposition, which started soon after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial reelection, quiet periods of seeming normalcy occurred between what were less frequent demonstrations.

Judging from the events of Ashura, however, the protests now seem...

The death of Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri on December 19 was good news for Iran's supreme leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei. With Montazeri's passing, one of his biggest religious opponents is now out of the way.

Khamenei's animosity towards Montazeri ran deep - in fact, it was personal. Montazeri had...