Group items tagged

Working with the Iranian, Russian and Syrian regimes to address Middle Eastern problems and fight ISIS is a sure way to alienate Middle Eastern moderates.

After 18 months, 39-yr old reporter Jason Rezaian was released after 18 months of solitary confinement in Iran's Evil Prison. Rezaian and three other American detainees in Iran were released in exchange for clemency for 7 Iranians charged or imprisoned in the U.S. + dismissal of charges against 14 Iranians outside the U.S. Iran got 7 "guys back" essentially plus lift of charges against 14, while U.S. only had 4 detainees return home?

The article details the crimes Iranian hackers are being charged with, mainly D-DoS of financial institutions and intrusion into a dam's control system. The author of the article casts doubts on the likelihood that Iran will extradite the accused individuals, primarily due to all of the accused having ties to the Iranian State.

According to this article, many claims associated to Hezbollah that have been against the US forces in Iraq, were not made by Hezbollah. Rather, they were made by an Iranian Militia

"Regime forces undertaking two fronts, led violent battles with Syrian Opposition forces in Al-Eis town, located in south Aleppo. Regime forces entered Al-Eis yesterday and announced the death of twelve Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants and two militants from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC."

Iranian media said. is advocating a boycott on oil from Saudi Arabia to rob the government

This is an article from the Columbia Journalism Review discussing about a popular illustrator Mana Neyestani. In the article, Neyestani talks about his career in Iran as a comic illustrator and how it landed him in jail. This correlates to the issues that are currently happening in Egypt  

As Iran develops their cyber warfare tactics, Israel is looking to develop a "digital Iron dome" to combat against it. They believe they need to be on a superpower level as far as cyber space is concerned or else be vulnerable to Iranian attacks.

Iran sanctions are lifted after coming to an agreement with the U.S. and E.U. Iran gained control of 100 billion in frozen assets and dismantled a large part of its nuclear program. A prisoner swap took place, releasing American citizens from Iran as well as 7 Iranians being imprisoned in Washington.

The US government in charging Iranian hackers creates a narrative of focusing on the individuals rather than the State that backs the individuals. The possible ramifications of this precedent are Nation-States willingly sacrificing individuals, whom are following government orders to engage in illicit cyber activities, to scapegoat and escape consequences.

"Conventional wisdom that Syria will turn out to be "Hezbollah's mini-Vietnam", and that the Iranian backed Lebanese armed group could encounter its gradual collapse in the conflict, is proving to be misguided three years into its involvement. While Hezbollah is losing manpower and assets in Syria, it is also expanding its foothold and leverage across the country and gaining military expertise."

A cyber-espionage hacker group believed to be backed by Iran and located in Tehran have been identified. Tracking has led to identification of, Yaser Balaghi, the leader of a group known as "Rocket Kitten".

U.S.warships will make a power move by blocking weapons delivered by Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Iranian military troops have killed a number of terrorists from the so-called Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) group seeking to cross the western borders into the country, a senior Iranian commander says.

Iran uses "dressing as a Kurdish woman" as a form of punishment to disobedient Iranian civilians

This article touches on an array of ideas but for the sake of my research I focused on the "Thirty Years War" section. Douglass Murray from The Spectator conveys the perspective that the Middle East is likely to be going through a similar 17th century European 30 years war, when Protestant and Catholics launched a full fledged war against one another. This means that religious war in the Middle East is so much bigger than just al-Qaeda and similar groups. The conflict will re-align the region, but also the entire religion of Islam. Douglass says the outcome would call for a Treaty of Westphalia-style solution, redrawing boundaries of a region where they've been bursting for decades.  For the time being the drivers of the conflict is a standoff between the two regional powers and their affiliated proxies, Saudi Arabia and Iran.