Iran News

Iranian Nuclear Scientist Shahram Amiri Defects To The USA

10:50 pm EST March 30th, 2010 | News | 4 Comments

Shahram Amiri

Epic.

An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials.

The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, ‘an intelligence coup’ in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran’s nuclear program.

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Iran Shutting Down Google Gmail

3:36 pm EST February 10th, 2010 | News | 3 Comments

ahmadinejadThey’re going into full-on lockdown mode.

Iran’s telecommunications agency announced what it described as a permanent suspension of Google Inc.’s email services, saying instead that a national email service for Iranian citizens would soon be rolled out. It wasn’t clear late Wednesday what effect the order had on Google’s email services in Iran.

Repressive regimes like this can’t persist in the modern age, I think. The pace of change will be glacial, but the digital walls will be cracked.

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Iran Slows Internet, Bans Media Before Student Protests

10:02 am EST December 6th, 2009 | News | Comments Off

Authoritarian governments always try to do this

Iranian authorities have slowed Internet connections to a crawl or choked them off completely before expected student protests Monday to deny the opposition a vital means of communication.

In another familiar tactic before such rallies, authorities have ordered journalists working for foreign media organizations not to leave their offices to cover the demonstrations.

Background
2009 Iranian election protests
Protests Flare in Tehran as Opposition Disputes Vote
The President on Iran: “The World is Watching”
Neda Agha Soltan’s family accuse Iran of her killing

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OMG Teh Diplomacy (Iran Edition)

9:18 pm EST October 1st, 2009 | News | 117 Comments

Wait, so we talk to Iran and negotiate stuff like adults and we get some movement? You’re kidding.

Iran agreed on Thursday in talks with the United States and other major powers to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspection in the next two weeks and to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium to Russia to be turned into fuel for a small reactor that produces medical isotopes, senior American and other Western officials said.

Are there a million caveats? Sure. But the conservative Bush policy of just being an ass to everyone went against decades of U.S. foreign policy that produced results – step by step. We’re back on track now, and able to do what needs to be done – a step at a time.

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Conservative “Advice” On Iran

8:59 am EST June 20th, 2009 | News | 106 Comments

Napoleon, Custer offer battlefield tactics… to be joined by Rumsfeld…

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State Dept. Helped Keep Twitter Up

2:50 pm EST June 16th, 2009 | News | 5 Comments

Good job.

The U.S. State Department contacted the social networking service Twitter over the weekend to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that could have cut daytime service to Iranians, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

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They Wanted To Blow Up Those Iranians They Claim To Love

11:08 am EST June 16th, 2009 | News | 40 Comments

iran

Glenn Greenwald makes a solid point about the conservative position on Iran.

Much of the same faction now claiming such concern for the welfare of The Iranian People are the same people who have long been advocating a military attack on Iran and the dropping of large numbers of bombs on their country — actions which would result in the slaughter of many of those very same Iranian People. During the presidential campaign, John McCain infamously sang about Bomb, Bomb, Bomb-ing Iran. The Wall St. Journal published a war screed from Commentary’s Norman Podhoretz entitled ‘The Case for Bombing Iran,’ and following that, Podhoretz said in an interview that he ‘hopes and prays’ that the U.S. ‘bombs the Iranians.’ John Bolton and Joe Lieberman advocated the same bombing campaign, while Bill Kristol — with typical prescience — hopefully suggested that Bush might bomb Iran if Obama were elected. Rudy Giuliani actually said he would be open to a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program.

Imagine how many of the people protesting this week would be dead if any of these bombing advocates had their way — just as those who paraded around (and still parade around) under the banner of Liberating the Iraqi People caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of them, at least. Hopefully, one of the principal benefits of the turmoil in Iran is that it humanizes whoever the latest Enemy is. Advocating a so-called ‘attack on Iran’ or ‘bombing Iran’ in fact means slaughtering huge numbers of the very same people who are on the streets of Tehran inspiring so many — obliterating their homes and workplaces, destroying their communities, shattering the infrastructure of their society and their lives. The same is true every time we start mulling the prospect of attacking and bombing another country as though it’s some abstract decision in a video game.

Much of conservative foreign policy resembles a crude video game, and of course their own lives are never on the line so they feel safe in advocating the nuttiest strategies around. The problem was that during the Bush era they actually had the power to do so. Result: Thousands dead and global instability.

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Video: Obama Discusses The Iranian Issue

7:20 pm EST June 15th, 2009 | News | 68 Comments

Cowboy diplomacy is over.

Lots more here.

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#CNNFail? Why, Yes.

6:01 pm EST June 14th, 2009 | Media | 26 Comments

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Clenis Escapes Blame, Now All Obama’s Fault

1:22 pm EST June 14th, 2009 | News | 14 Comments

The right has a new boogeyman. Mitt Romney, whose position on this will probably flip-flop on this in a couple days like every other position he’s ever had, somehow blames President Obama for the outcome of the Iranian election. Somehow. Whatever. Thank God these morons aren’t near the levers of power for the immediate moment.

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