Iran
August 17, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Daniel Pipes is the founder of the Middle East Forum. He literally wrote the book on the Rushdie affair: The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, The Ayatollah, and the West. I pulled it down from the bookshelf and wrote him last week following the attempted assassination of Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution. He kindly agreed to answer my questions by email. In the exchange below I allude to his prescient tracking
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August 16, 2022 — Scott Johnson
In 1989 Ayatollah Khomeni put out a hit on Salman Rushdie. He backed up the call for a hit with a $3,000,000 financial reward. Khomeni was of course the founder and Supreme Leader of the Iranian regime. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Khomeni’s successor as the regime’s Supreme Leader. In 2005 he told Iranians that Rushdie is an apostate whose execution is authorized by Islam. In the words of Daniel Pipes,
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August 15, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Salman Rushdie has been severely wounded, but his physical condition is reportedly improving. He was wounded on American soil by a fanatic seeking to effectuate Ayatollah Khomeni’s fatwa. Rushdie may lose an eye, but he won’t be as blind as the Biden White House. The Biden administration refuses to acknowledge the evil reality of the regime they are treating with in Vienna. Jonathan Schanzer focuses on the evil reality in
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August 13, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeni was the architect of the Iranian revolution and the guiding spirit of the Iranian regime that has held sway since 1979. He was the regime’s Supreme Leader. Ayatollah Ali Khameni is his successor. Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses was published in September 1988. A few months later, on February 14, 1989, Khomeni issued a fatwa proclaiming a death sentence on Rushdie “and all those involved in
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August 12, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Negotiations with the Iranian regime facilitated by our Russian “friends” have culminated in a final text of a new nuke deal announced in Vienna this week on August 8. FDD’s Richard Goldberg reviews the state of play in the disheartening essay “Five minutes from disaster.” Under the terms of a new deal: Iran would receive $275 billion of sanctions relief in the first year and $1 trillion by 2030, including
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August 1, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that a “New York man” possessing an illegal assault-style rifle was arrested near the home of an Iranian dissident who was previously the target of an alleged kidnapping plot by government operatives of the Islamic Republic. The New York Post has an accessible version of the story here. The brief Post story adds several telling details. The “New York man” is Khalid Mehdiyev.
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July 31, 2022 — John Hinderaker
I am not sure I understand this story, so I pass it on for what it is worth. From the Jerusalem Post: Iran expert Ben Sabti tweeted that an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “Telegram channel threatens to produce atomic warhead for missiles,” citing the channel’s message: “Iran can immediately return to Emad project and build an atomic bomb if Natanz facilities are attacked.” This is the tweet. I take
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July 27, 2022 — John Hinderaker
As regular readers know, I am a fan of Ron DeSantis. I think other Republicans, like Marco Rubio, could also make good presidential candidates in 2024. And I think former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should be included in that mix. Pompeo is a brilliant and extraordinarily competent guy who has succeeded spectacularly in every part of his career, from the military to academia to business to Congress to the
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July 22, 2022 — Scott Johnson
You may have read the news this week that the Iranian regime announced the capacity to build nuclear weapons. I tracked down the story in English-language regime mouthpiece Tehran Times. The story described the announcement as “a strong warning shot,” although it added the proviso that the regime has no intentions of using that capability (at this time). The story advises us to read carefully: “Kamal Kharrazi is usually reticent
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June 19, 2022 — Steven Hayward
It is very likely the case that the next major war has started. No—I don’t mean the Russia-Ukraine War, which could yet spread to the rest of Europe if we’re unlucky. I mean the Israel-Iran War. It has been said that Israel and Iran have been at open war for some time now. (Actually, Iran and the U.S. have likewise been at war since 1979, though don’t tell John Kerry.)
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June 10, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The mullahs has reportedly removed 27 cameras intended to let the IAEA think it is monitoring their dearly beloved nuclear program. The IAEA has gone so far as to censure Iran over its lack of cooperation with nuclear inspectors. President Obama wanted us to believe that the Supreme Leader had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, but no one is pushing that line anymore. The stupidity is too damn high.
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May 23, 2022 — Scott Johnson
IRGC Colonel Hassan Sayad Khodayari was assassinated yesterday Sunday in broad daylight outside his home by two men on a motorcycle who rode off into the sunset. Iran blamed the assassination on “elements linked to the global arrogance,” which the Times of Israel’s story translates as “the term for the United States and its allies including Israel.” I think Iran is fingering Israel, but they don’t want to let the
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April 18, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Gabriel Noronha has some ideas about how Congress might be able to bollix up the nightmarish Iran deal in the making. So long as Nancy Pelosi rules the Democrats control Congress, it’s not going to happen. However, he adds, “it would only take Republican control of one chamber of Congress to dismantle a fledgling deal next year—which is precisely what top Republicans are planning to do.” Noronha is a former
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April 10, 2022 — Scott Johnson
We’ve been following the astounding operation run in Washington, D.C. here (April 7), here (April 8), and here (by John, also April 8). Today I want to add the memorandum in support of the continued detention of the accused operators, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali (embedded below). John commented on it in the third linked post. Please pause over the text of the memorandum and the photographs included in it.
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April 8, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Scott has been writing about the strange case of the two men “of Washington, D.C.” who are under arrest, having purported to be high-level Department of Homeland Security agents. The men are Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, which might give the politically incorrect some ideas. News reports indicate that they “compromised” four Secret Service agents, although my understanding is that this simply means that those agents accepted gifts from them.
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April 8, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali were arrested on Wednesday for impersonating federal officers. Arraigned yesterday, they await a detention hearing this today. Following the arrests the FBI searched five apartment units and three vehicles where agents found multiple firearms, law enforcement equipment, servers, and hard drives. The two men appear rather obviously to have been running a lavish operation intended to penetrate the Secret Service, at the least, on behalf
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April 4, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Iran’s ruling mullahs are intent on inflicting maximum humiliation on President Biden as he seeks to bless, fund, and facilitate their nuclear program. They will not meet with our diplomats face to face. They relegate the administration to interlocutors including the friends of Vladimir Putin in Vienna. Twilight Zone has nothing on the Biden administration. In the latest development out of Vienna, AFP reports: “Iran says it will return to
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