A PROTESTER in Tehran threatens revenge against then-US president Donald Trump for the assassination of Iranian Maj.-Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in an airstrike in Baghdad, 2020. (photo credit: WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY/REUTERS)
Published March 30, 2024
To prevent a total collapse of the Middle East, the US must demonstrate its willingness to use force on the Iranian regime in response to Iranian-sponsored violence.
On January 28, Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias launched a drone strike in northeast Jordan, killing three US troops and injuring 34 others. The US retaliated on February 3, striking upwards of 85 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iranian proxy militia targets across western Iraq and eastern Syria.
Though the reissued waiver includes threats of G7 sanctions if Iran continues supplying Russia with ballistic missiles, the White House’s conflicting policy with Iran points to its fundamental misunderstanding of the Iranian threat.
The ayatollah’s theocratic dictatorship espouses the destruction of Israel, anti-American hostilities, and the export of its Twelver Shi’ite ideology to create a hegemonic Muslim theocracy in the Middle East. To Western ears, where the separation of church and state is deeply ingrained in policy and opinion, these goals are irrational and implausible, despite Iran’s deployment of the IRGC and its network of proxy militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and Yemen against Israel, Western targets, and Sunni opposition.
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SOURCE: www.m.jpost.com
RELATED: US Denounces Severe Sentences for Civil Activists in Iran
Published March 29, 2024
The U.S. Department of State has strongly condemned the Iranian government’s imposition of harsh sentences on 11 women’s rights activists in Gilan province. The department’s spokesperson denounced the sentences as “unjust” and characterized them as “an attempt to intimidate and suppress their voices.”
Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for the Department of State, criticized the legal proceedings concerning human rights activists in Iran as “fabricated,” in response to a query from Voice of America’s Persian Service during a press briefing on Thursday. He asserted, “The Iranian regime aims to intimidate and silence the voices of these brave women through such verdicts.”
On Wednesday, Iran’s Third Branch of the Revolutionary Court in the city of Rasht handed down a combined 60-year prison term to 11 women’s rights activists who were arrested in Gilan in August 2023.
Zohreh Dadras was given a prison term of nine years and six months, while eight other women — Forough Samieenia, Sara Jahani, Yasamin Hashdari, Shiva Shahsia, Negin Rezaei, Matin Yazdani, Azadeh Chavoshian and Zahra Dadras — were individually sentenced to over six years in prison. Two other women — Jelveh Javaheri and Hooman Taheri — were each given a year of imprisonment.
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SOURCE: www.voanews.com
RELATED: America, Iran, and the Patron’s Dilemma
The Backers of Israel and Hamas Didn’t Start the War in Gaza—but They Can End It
A funeral procession for Abu Baqir al-Saadi, a Kataib Hezbollah leader killed in a U.S. airstrike, Najaf, Iraq, February 2024
Published March 28, 2024
As has been widely noted, Israeli security officials were caught completely off guard by Hamas’s shocking October 7 attack, a lapse that allowed the rampage to go on for hours before Israeli forces could regain control. But the Israelis were not the only ones unprepared. So, too, were Hamas’s own allies, including its chief patron, Iran. As Iran and other members of its so-called axis of resistance made clear, Hamas had failed to seek approval for—or give them prior notice of—its plans.
But Iranian officials decided they could ill afford to let Hamas struggle for itself, particularly once Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip began to spark outrage across the Middle East. Still, they were wary of provoking a wider war. As a result, Iran, through its axis clients—including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria—has tried to walk a fine line between responding to the demand for action and preventing axis responses to the Israeli offensive from spinning out of control. In essence, by acting without coordination with its ostensible overlord, Hamas precipitated a dangerous crisis that has threatened to engulf Tehran, as well.
After five months of war in Gaza, the United States is facing an analogous problem. As Israel’s chief patron and ally, the United States has staunchly backed Israel in its determination to root out Hamas in Gaza. Yet the Israeli government has continually defied U.S. demands to act with restraint, causing a humanitarian catastrophe that has already cost more than 30,000 Palestinian lives. Now, Israeli leaders are threatening to go ahead with a major offensive in Rafah, an area in southern Gaza containing more than one million civilians, even as the Biden administration repeatedly states that it opposes such a move.
