UN Security Council resoundingly defeated a US resolution to indefinitely extend UN arms embargo on Iran, with only Dominican Republic endorsing the American move, New York, 14 Aug, 2020 The Iran nuclear issue moves to centerstage of international security with US President Donald Trump’s remarks Saturday that Washington “will be doing a snapback” against Iran …
Continue reading “Snapback sanctions on Iran isn’t open-and-shut case”
Russian President Vladimir Putin watches Black Sea navy exercise from Marshal Ustinov missile cruiser, Jan. 9, 2020. The US President Donald Trump first said there were ‘no casualties’ in the Iranian missile attack on the Ain al-Asad military airbase in Iraq on January 8. “We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and …
Debris at the headquarters of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia after the US airstrike, Qaim, Iraq, December 30, 2019 The “precision defensive strikes” by the United States at five targets of Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia in Iraq and Syria on Sunday night can be seen as a new vector of Washington’s “maximum pressure” approach to Tehran. …
Continue reading “US reminds Iran of red line on Iraqi turf”
Satellite imagery of Iran’s underground Fordow uranium enrichment facility north of the city of Qom Tehran announced on November 7 that it has begun refining uranium at Fordow, a secretive site built inside a mountain to the north of the holy city of Qom, apparently to protect it from any aerial bombardment, and one that …
Continue reading “Tehran taunts US with Fordow; pokes at Trump with Agent Levinson”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei addressed a group of seminary students in Tehran, Sept 17, 2019. The geopolitical faultlines of the drone attack on the Saudi Aramco plants on Saturday are surfacing. These are early days but three broad trends have appeared. One, Saudi investigators have begun pointing finger at Iran, which is certain …
Continue reading “Trump is in no rush to jump into Saudi defence”
An undated photo released by the Korean Central News Agency on July 26, 2019 showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watching a missile launch. The sensational New Yorker story on August 2 by Robin Wright on the unpublicised meeting between Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and the American senator Rand Paul (who is a …
Continue reading “What if North Korea and Iran move in tandem”
The Arab Revolt (1916-1918). File photo. The Arab sheikhs who instigated the US-Iran standoff have heard the African proverb, ‘When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers’. But they chose to ignore it. The assumption in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi was that President Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ strategy would frighten Tehran and life would be …
Continue reading “Another ‘Arab Revolt’? History never repeats.”
Iranian supertanker Grace 1 seized by British Navy off Gibralter, July 5, 2019 The illegal seizure of an Iranian oil tanker off Gibralter by the British Navy last Friday is fast acquiring farcical character. Britain acted at the behest of the US; in turn, the US probably acted at the behest of the ‘B Team’. …
Continue reading “US pours oil into fire in Gulf, mum’s the word for India”
Iran’s enriched uranium to fuel its nuclear power plant in Bushehr (file photo) A series of announcements in Tehran through the past week took the situation around the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) — and the US-Iranian standoff — to an inflection point. On July 1, it transpired that Iran has exceeded …
Continue reading “Iran’s shock therapy breaks JCPOA stalemate”
(Incirlik air base in eastern Turkey housing US warplanes and 50 nuclear bombs. File photo) The Turkish state news agency Anadolu has featured an analysis titled US sanctions on Iran increasing public unease, which is highly critical of the Iranian ruling elite’s approach to the current standoff with the US. The thrust of the commentary …
Continue reading “Trump outflanks Iran to the west and east”
