Iran News and Discussions

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Rony
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Rony »

How Iran's gdp increased from 835 billions in 2020 to 1.081 trillion dollars in 2021 ? Arent they under sanctions and all in addition to covid ? That make them the strongest economy in the middle east ahead of Turkey and S.Arabia and second largest in the muslim world after Indonesia.

Iran's GDP, current prices U.S. dollars Billions

2020 - 835.351 \2021 - 1,081.383
Aditya_V
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Aditya_V »

Thats a Huge GDP for a country of 70million
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Aditya_V »

Actually Iran population is 85 million and real GDP 703 billion and its economy has grown 3.1% in 2021 after 2years of negative 6 and 7% growth
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Lisa »

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/overview#1

From the World Bank

"Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been estimated at US$628 billion for the Iranian calendar year 2020/21, calculated at the official exchange rate for a population of about 84 million"

I think the date in the post above but 2, may be PPP value.
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Ambar »

EXCLUSIVE: Mossad recruited top Iranian scientists to blow up key nuclear facility

Mossad recruited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to carry out a covert operation which blew up one of the regime’s most secure nuclear facilities earlier this year, the JC can reveal.

Up to 10 scientists were approached by Israeli agents and agreed to destroy the underground A1000 centrifuge hall at Natanz in April, though they believed that they were working for international dissident groups.

Some of the explosives they used were dropped into the compound by a drone and quietly collected by the scientists, while others were smuggled into the high security facility hidden in boxes of food on a catering lorry. The ensuing destruction caused chaos in the highest echelons of the Iranian leadership. It demolished 90 per cent of the centrifuges at the nuclear plant, delaying progress towards a bomb and putting the key complex out of action for up to nine months.

The new details are among astonishing secrets of three connected Mossad operations that took place over an 11-month period of sabotage in Iran. The first two, in July 2020 and April 2021, targeted the complex in Natanz using explosives, while he third, in June this year, took the form of a quadcopter assault on the Iran Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA), in the city of Karaj, 30 miles northwest of Tehran. The full details are published for the first time by the JC today.

Other revelations include:

Mossad spies hid explosives in building materials used to construct the Natanz centrifuge hall as long ago as 2019, then triggered them in 2020:

Agents sneaked an armed quadcopter, weighing the same as a motorbike, into Iran piece by piece, and used it to launch missiles at the TESA site in Karaj in June:

The three operations were planned together over an 18-month period by a team of 1,000 technicians, analysts and spies, as well as scores of agents on the ground:

The three-part assault on Iranian nuclear infrastructure was carried out by Mossad acting alone – known in Israeli intelligence circles as a ‘blue-and-white operation’ – and not jointly with the United States, dubbed ‘blue-white-and-red’.

It comes amid mounting anxiety that Tehran is cynically playing for time as it resumes negotiations in Vienna while pressing ahead with building a nuclear weapon.

In recent weeks, Israel has shared intelligence with Western allies suggesting that Iran is preparing to enrich uranium to 90 per cent purity, the level required to produce a nuclear bomb, Axios reported.

This raises the spectre of a major Israeli air assault on Tehran’s nuclear plants, should both negotiations and sabotage prove insufficient to halt the programme.

This week, the JC has reported that Israel is embarking on a new policy of launching covert attacks on Iranian soil in retaliation for its meddling in the region, meaning that further undercover operations are in the pipeline.

The team of scientists carried out the sabotage in April this year, while the nuclear negotiations with the West were underway in Vienna.

The measures were needed in order to access the underground A1000 centrifuge hall at Natanz, which housed up to 5,000 centrifuges and is protected from air assault by 40 feet of concrete and iron.

Hours after Iran declared that it had begun to use advanced IR-5 and IR-6 centrifuges at the site, in blatant breach of the 2015 nuclear deal, the bombs were remotely set off.

The blast destroyed the independent and highly secure internal power system that supplied the centrifuges.

It caused a power blackout in the heavily fortified complex.

“The scientists’ motivations were all different,” a source said. “Mossad found out what they deeply wanted in their lives and offered it to them.

“There was an inner circle of scientists who knew more about the operation, and an outer circle who helped out but had less information.”

After the explosion, the scientists responsible were spirited away to a safe location. The source added: “All of them are very safe today.”

Iran named a suspect – 43-year-old Reza Karimi – and claimed to have issued an Interpol ‘red notice’ for his arrest. So far he has not been found.

The explosion left a crater so large that one Iranian official fell into it while examining the damage, injuring his head, leg, arm and back.

Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, the head of the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, grudgingly acknowledged to Iranian state television after the attack that the plan was “rather beautiful”.

This was the second of a three-part Mossad operation targeting Iran’s ‘fissile material project’, which is the industrial process of enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

The first attack had come on 2 July 2020, with a mysterious explosion inside the Iran Centre for Advanced Centrifuges (ICAC) warehouse at Natanz, central Iran, a key hub in Tehran’s network of nuclear plants dotted around the country.

The orchestration of the blast was audacious. A year earlier, Israeli spies posing as construction wholesalers had sold Iranian officials building materials to be used in the centrifuge hall.

Unbeknownst to the Iranians, the materials had been filled with Mossad explosives. They were built into the hall and remained in place all year. Then, when the time was right, Israel’s spymasters had pushed the button.

Mossad’s brains behind this attack – whom we are not naming – also led a similar operation in the early Nineties, the JC has learnt, in which a desk filled with listening devices was sold to Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO office in Tunisia, providing the Israelis with a stream of audio intelligence.

“The Iranians have always known that Israel has infiltrated their supply chains, but they are powerless to do anything about it,” a source told the JC.

The warehouse had been used to precisely calibrate centrifuges, a vital part of a complex process of producing a nuclear weapon.

The blast caused major damage, destroying a significant quantity of hardware and dramatically degrading the country’s nuclear programme. According to Iranian reports, nobody was injured.

The third and final act in the three-part drama came in June this year. Mossad’s attention now turned to the production of the centrifuges themselves, in order to delay the replacement of the equipment it had damaged in the first two attacks.

Over the preceding weeks, an armed quadcopter drone, weighing the same as a motorcycle, had been smuggled into the country piece by piece by agents.

The target was the TESA complex in Karaj, the most important factory to build the centrifuges – including advanced centrifuges – for the enrichment plants.

On June 23, from a location 10 miles away from the TESA factory, a joint Iranian and Israeli team launched the drone, flew it towards the facility and fired, partly destroying it.

The drone was then piloted back to the team on the ground, who spirited it away to be used again.

The revelations underline Israel’s capacity for striking at the heart of the Iranian regime’s most secret and strongly fortified sites, bolstering the Jewish state’s insistence that if necessary, it will take unilateral military action to prevent the theocracy from achieving a bomb.

Richard Pater, Executive Director of Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom), said: “Unlike in the previous rounds of talks, Britain is currently holding the strongest line. This is very much appreciated by Israel, as there is a sense that the Americans are so desperate to return to the deal that they would be too soft.

“However, it is quite clear that Britain and the rest of the international community still sees negotiation as the most effective track to rein in Iranian ambitions.

“Israel is not convinced that this will be enough, and also doubt that more problematic partners, like Russia and China, will be able to hold same line.

“Therefore, the credibility of the threat from Israel needs to be enhanced, reiterated and reimposed, as part of a dual effort to put real pressure on Iranians.

“In terms of geopolitics, that is the message that these operations are sending to the international community.”
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/exclus ... y-1.523163
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Cyrano »

Hope this inspires RAW and other unnamed agencies re Khatua
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Cyrano »

Reports of fighting between Taliban and Iran in paki media. They're blaming India for it. The world has moved on...
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Rony »

Lisa wrote:https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/overview#1

From the World Bank

"Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been estimated at US$628 billion for the Iranian calendar year 2020/21, calculated at the official exchange rate for a population of about 84 million"

I think the date in the post above but 2, may be PPP value.
As per IMF, October 2021 figures, its 1.08 trillion for Iran. Its nominal not PPP. See link below. India is 2.95 trillion . For Iran, its a huge addition. They overtook Turkey, Saudis and every ummah country except Indonesians. As we have seen before, as Iran gains power, it will start playing games with India. Expect more Iranian blackmail on Chabahar, oil fields, Afghanistan, playing China card etc.

https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper ... OWORLD/CAN
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Shanmukh »

Namaskaar to all,
How is it that Iran has a nominal GDP of 1.4-1.7 trillion now? They had 600 billion in 2018 ....

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO ... &ds=.&br=1

Can someone more economically savvy than me explain how this is happening?
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Rony »

Rony wrote:
Lisa wrote:https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/iran/overview#1

From the World Bank

"Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been estimated at US$628 billion for the Iranian calendar year 2020/21, calculated at the official exchange rate for a population of about 84 million"

I think the date in the post above but 2, may be PPP value.
As per IMF, October 2021 figures, its 1.08 trillion for Iran. Its nominal not PPP. See link below. India is 2.95 trillion . For Iran, its a huge addition. They overtook Turkey, Saudis and every ummah country except Indonesians. As we have seen before, as Iran gains power, it will start playing games with India. Expect more Iranian blackmail on Chabahar, oil fields, Afghanistan, playing China card etc.

https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper ... OWORLD/CAN
The reason why Iran's GDP is showing a sharp increase in IMF's case
Both IMF and the World Bank updated their estimations in late 2021 about Iran’s nominal GDP, based on the “current prices” (with measuring inflation).

IMF’s calculation says Iran’s nominal GDP, based on the low “official” USD rate (42,000) has almost doubled since 2017 and reached about $835 billion in 2020, but the World Bank says it declined from $445 billion in 2017 to $203 billion in 2020, based on the USD rate at Iran’s open currency market.

Considering the fivefold difference between official and open market currency rates in Iran, the huge gap between the two estimates is quite reasonable.

Iran’s government plans to eliminate the low “official” dollar rate that the IMF has used. This rate was applicable only to controlled imports of essential goods, such as food and medicine. It is not clear why IMF made its calculations based on this rate. Therefore, it is expected that the IMF will adjust its calculation and put the country’s nominal GDP at a level, close to World Bank’s estimated figure.

In this case, Iran’s nominal GDP with 83 million population, equals half of United Arab Emirates’ and one-third of Saudi Arabia’s or Turkey’s GDPs.
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Rony »

https://twitter.com/festivalbharat/stat ... Hh242NFMEg : When India was helping Iran at the peak of its COVID crisis, Iran was paying trolls to spread anti-Hindu disinformation. Iran, even more than Pakistan, funds Hindumisia globally.

https://twitter.com/festivalbharat/stat ... Hh242NFMEg : Iranian trolls pretend to be Indian human rights activists, allege that India is persecuting minorities, & tag CNN & MSNBC, asking them to cover such stories:
@prasiddhaa_ | Watch: https://youtu.be/OqBEMwMos-o
Rony
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Rony »

Typical of Wire. They dont want to write how Sanskrit and Indian Arya's influenced Iran in ancient times but write about how Urdu and 20th century Indian Muslims influenced Iran.

How Urdu and India Influenced Afghan and Iranian Reformers
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Aditya_V »

Wire also claims China occupied Aksai Chin in 2020. So no point thinking about them. If someone reads wire then something is wrong in thier head. Truth is a very rare commodity for them and their sister publication.
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by Mollick.R »

Five Indian seafarers kept under judicial custody in Iran to return to India today

ANI Last Updated: Mar 24, 2023, 01:11 PM IST

Five Indian seafarers who were kept under judicial custody at Chabahar Central Jail in Iran for 403 days are set to return to India on Friday.

According to sources, the 5 Indian seafarers will reportedly arrive in Mumbai from Tehran via an Iran Air flight.


According to the President of the Indian World Forum, Puneet Singh Chandok, the repatriation of seafarers is facilitated by the Indian World Forum and is being borne by the Indian government.

The Embassy of India, Tehran after the direction of Delhi High Court to the Centre provided boarding and lodging to the seafarers and prior to that they were at the mercy of local samaritans.

Notably, Puneet Singh Chandhok, President of the Indian World Forum on July 12, 2021, raised the issue of the seafarers with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well, according to sources.

These sailors, Aniket Sham Yenpure, Mandar Milind Worlikar, Naveen Singh, Pranav Kumar, and Thamizhselvan Rengasamy were apparently in judicial custody in Tehran for 403 days without any charges as investigations were completed with authorities in Chabahar and Konark, Sistan and Baluchestan Provinces in Iran.

According to the circumstances, the local court in Chabahar in its judgement on March 8, 2021, ruled the defendants innocent, and ordered their immediate release, following which they were released from prison on March 9, 2021, and taken for completing formalities to Konark.

Subsequently they were handed over their belongings etc but surprisingly they were not handed back their passports and identity documents including CDC by the local authorities, sources said.

Subsequently, a petition was filed by the family members of seafarers at Delhi High Court through legal counsel Gurinder Pal Singh seeking legal assistance from the Indian authorities as well as the issuance of a document to prove their identity.


https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 963706.cms
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by MeshaVishwas »

Army day parade of IRI

First time watching, pretty unique.
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by ricky_v »

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/irans- ... ary-guards
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is the ideological custodian of Iran’s 1979 revolution. Charged with defending the Islamic Republic against internal and external threats, the corps has gained an outsize role in executing Iran’s foreign policy and wields control over vast segments of the economy. The IRGC’s ties to armed groups in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories, help Iran project influence and power. Answering directly to the supreme leader, the corps is also influential in domestic politics, and many senior officials have passed through its ranks.
The IRGC was founded in the immediate aftermath of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s fall, as leftists, nationalists, and Islamists jockeyed to set the course of the revolutionary republic. While the interim prime minister controlled the government and state institutions such as the army, many clerics and disciples of Iran’s founding supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, organized counterweights to those inherited institutions. Among them was the IRGC, which operated beyond the bounds of the law and the judiciary. Answering to the supreme leader, its command structure bypasses the elected president.

The guards were conceived as a “people’s army,” helping consolidate the revolution as Khomeini instituted a state based on the concept of velayat-e faqih, or guardianship of the jurist. The aim was to set up Iran as a constitutional republic, enveloped in a theocratic structure. Khomeini intended for the IRGC to protect the new regime from a coup d’état, such as the one in 1953 that ousted the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq and restored the shah to power.
The Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) transformed the IRGC into more of a conventional fighting force with a command structure similar to that of Western militaries. Now highly institutionalized, it remains a force parallel to that of Iran’s regular armed forces, with upward of 190,000 troops under its command, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).


ground forces based across Iran’s 31 provinces and Tehran, which number more than 150,000 troops;

the Basij paramilitary force, which claims it can mobilize some six hundred thousand volunteers;

naval forces, separate from the naval branch of Iran’s regular military, which have some twenty thousand sailors and are charged with patrolling Iran’s maritime borders, including the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-third of the world’s seaborne crude oil passes each year;

an air force of fifteen thousand personnel, also separate from a parallel branch of the regular military, which runs Iran’s ballistic missile program; and

a cyber command, which works with IRGC-affiliated businesses on military and commercial espionage, as well as propaganda distribution, according to IISS (its precise relationship with state-affiliated hackers is unclear).
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The expeditionary Quds Force emerged as the IRGC’s de facto external affairs branch, and it has developed ties with armed groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and elsewhere, providing them with training, weapons, money, and military advice to project Iran’s power abroad. While some of these groups frequently operate independently of Iran and each other, Tehran views them as part of an anti-West “Axis of Resistance” under its sway. Experts say Iran has attempted to strengthen cooperation within this alliance in recent years.

The IRGC’s involvement in Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003 has become a particular point of contention between Tehran and Washington. In 2007, U.S. President George W. Bush accused the Quds Force of providing Shiite Muslim militants with roadside bombs to kill American forces, though experts inside and outside the U.S. government questioned whether such orders came from Tehran directly. The Donald Trump administration blamed the IRGC for the killings of 608 U.S. troops in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.
Image
Iranian officials expanded the Quds Force’s presence in both Iraq and Syria in response to the rise of the Islamic State group. They warned that if the Sunni Muslim militant organization wasn’t defeated there, it would march on Tehran. In Iraq, popular mobilizations of tens of thousands of Shiite militiamen soon eclipsed the national army. Many of these militias pledged loyalty to Iran’s supreme leader and were led by commanders who worked with the Quds Force against the U.S. occupation in the prior decade. The official who led the mobilization, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, held both Iraqi and Iranian citizenship and had served as a Quds Force officer. While the mobilization provided the ground forces that rolled back the Islamic State, the United States provided air power, effectively making the guards and U.S. forces tacit partners.
The IRGC has also become a central player in Iran’s domestic politics, evolving into what CFR’s Ray Takeyh has called the most important organization in the country. After gaining power as a counterweight to the 1997–2005 presidency of Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, the number of former IRGC personnel in politics grew further during the first term of Khatami’s successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—who led the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War—has appointed former IRGC commanders to top political posts, and former guards in parliament tend to advocate a hard-line foreign policy, as well as support for developing a civilian nuclear program.

Because the IRGC marches in lockstep with the supreme leader’s policy positions, its powers at times seem to outshine that of Iran’s president, who does not control any of the armed forces and has relatively few powers of his own.

The organization’s influence is still superseded by that of Khamenei, with whom the IRGC shares a mutually beneficial relationship, experts say. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in a 2009 study [PDF] that Khamenei has developed a relationship with the IRGC that is “increasingly symbiotic, politically expedient for the Leader and economically expedient for the guards,” helping compensate for the fact that he lacks Khomeini’s authority. “He is their commander in chief and appoints their senior commanders, who, in turn, are publicly deferential to him and increasingly reap benefits by playing a more active role in political decision making and economic activity,” wrote Sadjadpour.

In 2007, the Basij was brought under the direct command of the IRGC, a reorganization some analysts attributed to a renewed focus on perceived internal threats to the regime.
The 2013 presidential election was also marred by IRGC intervention. While Hassan Rouhani ultimately prevailed over hard-liners favored by many guards, reports indicated that the IRGC created an atmosphere of intimidation ahead of the vote and pressured the Guardian Council, which vets candidates for their ideological suitability, to cull candidates they deemed unacceptable. Among those disqualified was the prominent revolutionary figure Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was suspected of being too independent of Khamenei. The corps saw its political support grow with Iran’s 2020 general elections and the 2021 election of Rouhani’s successor, Ebrahim Raisi.

Among the political interests the guards defend is an economic empire: according to a 2020 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “the IRGC has become the most powerful controller of all important economic sectors across Iran.” The IRGC first became an economic player [PDF] when it was charged with rebuilding infrastructure destroyed in the Iran-Iraq War, and the corps has since expanded into many other industries, including banking, shipping, manufacturing, and consumer imports. Political clout secures IRGC-affiliated companies no-bid contracts from the state to service the oil sector and develop infrastructure.

These economic activities enrich IRGC officials and fund its activities, such as weapons acquisition, covert operations abroad, and Iran’s nuclear program. They also support veterans and the families of killed IRGC members. Public works projects developing Iran’s rural regions build the IRGC goodwill it lacks in urban areas and provide work for Basij volunteers. When floods devastated rural areas in western Iran in April 2019, volunteer guards took a leading role in relief efforts. In Syria, the IRGC has spearheaded Iranian reconstruction projects.
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by ricky_v »

https://www.cfr.org/article/islamic-rep ... er-centers

the iran post 1979 is a revolutionary state, in that revolution must be brought to all the peoples. always good top be aware of such close neighbours, readings about the irgc inspires one to wariness
Image
Iran’s system of government is not quite a democracy, nor a theocracy. Former Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini developed its animating doctrine, known as guardianship of the jurist, in the years before the Islamic Republic’s founding. Khomeini posited that a just government was possible if religious scholars sat atop it to ensure consistency with Islamic law. This system was put into place with a constitutional referendum after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The organs of a modern republic—a unicameral legislature (the majlis), executive led by the president, and judiciary—were enveloped by a clerical system. (Most of Iran’s clerical hierarchy, however, remains outside this official structure, based in Qom rather than the capital, Tehran.)

Article 110 of Iran’s constitution [PDF] outlines the position’s major authorities. They include setting national policies and supervising their implementation, as well as commanding the armed forces and appointing military chiefs and the heads of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and police. Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, has reportedly influenced the selection of ministers of defense, intelligence, and foreign affairs, as well as science, a sensitive post charged with appointing the heads of universities.
The supreme leader’s authority is not absolute, however. He is elected by the Assembly of Experts, a body of eighty-eight directly elected jurists constitutionally mandated with overseeing the supreme leader. In practice, however, they carry out oversight in secret committee, and it is unclear whether they have ever sought to meaningfully check either Khomeini or Khamenei.

There are informal constraints on the supreme leader, as well. The position is considered both an arbiter of Iranian politics and a source of emulation, so his direction is meant to both set the course for the republic but also reflect broader consensus among elites. Meanwhile, the supreme leader relies as much on typical instruments of political power [PDF]—control of media outlets, patronage, and so on—as the religious trappings of his office to influence government and society.
Elected to a maximum of two four-year terms, the president is charged with executing the country’s laws and setting policy within parameters set by the supreme leader. He nominates members of the cabinet, who must be confirmed by the parliament. He also proposes the budget, which must then be passed under the normal legislative process. (Profits from petroleum exports, projected to reach up to $26 billion in fiscal year 2022, account for roughly a quarter of expected government revenue; Khamenei has argued for lessening Iran’s oil dependence.) The current president, Ebrahim Raisi, is seen as a protégé of the supreme leader.

The parliament, or majlis, has 290 seats. Its members are directly elected to four-year terms by geographic district, with five seats set aside for religious minorities. The number of clerics holding seats in it has declined—sixteen were elected in 2016, down from twenty-seven in 2012—while the number associated with the Revolutionary Guards has increased. As the unicameral legislature, it has broad lawmaking authority, but another body, the Guardian Council, is charged with determining whether laws it passes are permissible under the constitution and Islamic precepts. Half of the council’s twelve members are theologians appointed by the supreme leader; the other half are legal scholars selected by the parliament.
Another body, the Expediency Council, was established in the 1988 revision of the constitution to mediate between the parliament and Guardian Council. The supreme leader, who appoints its members to five-year terms, has since delegated authority to it for supervising the government. It is another avenue through which the supreme leader can choose to exercise closer authority over the government.

The Supreme National Security Council is led by the president and includes the parliamentary speaker and chief justice—that is, the heads of all three branches of government. Also on the council are military chiefs and the ministers of state, foreign affairs, and intelligence, as well as two personal representatives of the supreme leader; thus, it includes appointees of both the president and supreme leader. Its constitutional writ is broad; it is charged with setting a wide range of policies that touch on defense and security, responding to threats both foreign and domestic.
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by A_Gupta »

From the Israeli paper Haaretz, by Zvi Ba'rel
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-new ... 37fb8c7dce
Even worse for Tehran, it's developing an image of a state that doesn't pose a genuine threat, risking its role as a deterrent force blocking attacks against its allies. For Iran to fulfill its role as a "deterrent power," parallel to what the U.S. has on the other side, it has no choice but to jump into the fray. The attacks in Iraq and Syria were probably the first part of a display of direct Iranian involvement.

However, these are "safe" countries, as far as Iran is concerned. Iraq did complain to the UN Security Council, but it doesn't risk the threat of counterattack or even severing relations. Syria is already an open battlefield used for target practice.

An attack on Pakistan, by contrast, is a move meant to deliver a strategic message to the entire region – that Iran isn't afraid of countries that can respond militarily and will jump in if necessary. The question is when it would be considered necessary to take Iran from a position of deterrence to using direct action. Iran is not directly threatening to take action in Lebanon, at least for now. Still, the attack in Pakistan, a message about what could happen in Lebanon, should be added to the list of Israeli and American considerations.

Iran tried to defuse the timebomb threatening its relations with Pakistan with an announcement on Thursday that it is committed to good neighborly relations with Islamabad. Tehran called on countries in the region to prevent the establishment of terror bases on their territory. This is obviously not an apology or a request for forgiveness, and much more will be required to assuage the tension between Tehran and Islamabad. But for Iran, it's a worthwhile price to pay in exchange for the message it wanted to deliver to the region.
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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by sanman »

What's the situation on Iran's nuclear enrichment status?


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Re: Iran News and Discussions

Post by ricky_v »

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/20/ir ... ddle-east/
Earlier this month, Iran conducted elections for its parliament and the Assembly of Experts, a body of elderly clerics nominally responsible for choosing the next supreme leader. The massive disqualification of candidates in both elections by the regime caused many Iranian voters to ignore these races. That does not mean the West should ignore them, in particular the election for the assembly, which will anoint the next supreme leader.
The clerical regime’s broadly successful bid to dominate the northern Middle East has cost relatively few direct Iranian casualties; the incorporation of Yemen’s Houthis into the holy war against Israel and the United States has given Iran an enormous return on investment in the south. Unlike the traditional Iranian clergy, Khamenei has an ecumenical disposition towards Shiite and Sunni groups—and has deeply ingrained that approach into Iran’s Middle Eastern strategy.
For the future, Khamenei has created a system that is now more or less plug-and-play, in which his successor doesn’t have to be nearly as accomplished to reap similar results. After the Trump administration’s assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps mastermind Qassem Suleimani, his far less awe-inspiring successor, Esmail Qaani, has not fallen behind his predecessor in utilizing proxies to attack the regime’s enemies. Once upon a time, Iran’s nuclear program depended on critical engineers, who then became targets of Israeli assassinations. Now, the program seems to operate on autopilot.


Khamenei’s grand designs, however, remain weak at the core. Most Iranians are in neither an Islamist nor an imperialist mood. If the Americans or Israelis want to checkmate Iran, they will need to fight it from the center out—by overloading the theocracy’s capacity to cope with its citizenry’s anger.

Khamenei inherited, augmented, and co-opted key institutions of the Islamic Republic—including the supreme leader’s office, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Special Clerical Court (which tries refractory mullahs), and the Expediency Council (which adjudicates the propriety of all legislation and the fitness of all officeholders). He has repeatedly defied expectations—including by Western foreign ministries, intelligence services, and commentators—that he and the regime would soften with time and develop a more peaceful modus vivendi with Iran’s regional neighbors and the United States.

To contain Iran, let alone roll back its influence in the Middle East, Washington must find additional ways to directly confront Tehran with the costs of its belligerence—including hard power applied to Iranians. Doing so before Khamenei dies would put a lot of stress on the theocracy, which has clearly shown that it wants to diminish the United States and its allies while avoiding a direct confrontation with a superpower. Further U.S. retrenchment in the Middle East is unlikely to lead to peace and stability in the region.
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