BOOKS-US: Decoding the Enigmatic Republic of Iran

Condoleezza Rice was in a triumphant mood the day Baghdad fell in April 2003, writes journalist Barbara Slavin in her new book, "Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies".

POLITICS-US: Military Resistance Forced Shift on Iran Strike

The George W. Bush administration's shift from the military option of a massive strategic attack against Iran to a surgical strike against selected targets associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker earlier this month, appears to have been prompted not by new alarm at Iran's role in Iraq but by the explicit opposition of the nation's top military leaders to an unprovoked attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

POLITICS-IRAN: Islamist, Socialist Revolutions Don&#39t Mix

An attempt to rope in the son and daughter of the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara to forge a parallel between Iran’s Islamist revolution and the socialist revolution in Latin America through a four-day conference has ended in fiasco.

POLITICS: The Man Behind the Iran Curtain

He called for more "research" into the unequivocal facts of the Holocaust, said Iranian women were among the freest in the world, and declared that homosexuality did not exist in his country.

POLITICS-US: Anti-Iran Hawks Win Partial Victory in Congress

Amid growing speculation about prospects for U.S. military action against Iran, neo-conservatives and other hawks won a significant - if somewhat incomplete - victory in rallying the Democratic-led Congress to its side.

BOLIVIA: Visit by Iranian President Kicks Up Dust Storm

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales is beginning to forge his foreign policy in the conflict-torn Middle East as he announced the establishment of diplomatic relations with Iran, under the worried gaze of the United States and against stiff opposition from the local business community.

POLITICS: Iranian President in Nuclear Theatrics

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad completed his three-day political theatrics in New York, drawing large crowds and angry demonstrators, he left the United Nations with a defiant warning: Iran will not be cowed by any new sanctions either by the United States or the European Union.

POLITICS-US: Have Hawks Won a Round on Iraq Escalation?

The George W. Bush administration recently concluded that the increase in rocket attacks on coalition targets by Shiite forces over the summer was a deliberate move by Iran to escalate the war in order to put pressure on the United States to accept Iranian influence in Iraq, according to a senior U.S. government official.

POLITICS-JAPAN: Fukuda to Fight Fires at Home First

Japan’s new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has begun smoothening feathers ruffled in the neighbourhood by his predecessors, Shinzo Abe and Junichiro Koizumi. But what he really needs is goodwill at home until he can lead his battered Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) into a snap poll, expected next year.

MIDEAST-US: The Long Propaganda War

The George W. Bush administration is badly losing the so-called "war of ideas" in the Middle East, a group of foreign policy experts suggested here Wednesday, by failing to grasp that persuasion is just as important as the more heavy-handed tactics of its "war on terror".

ECONOMY-IRAN: Petrol Rationing – Bumpy Ride

Two months after the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began rationing petrol to ‘’vaccinate’’ itself against possible sanctions, critics say the plan has failed to cut down gasoline consumption. Instead it has hurt the agriculture, tourism, transportation and other sectors of the economy.

MEDIA-US: Cockroach Cartoon Crossed the Line, Iranians Say

As the war of words between Western nations led by United States and Iran's hardliner government over its nuclear programme has escalated in the last few weeks, a cartoon published on the editorial page of the Columbus Dispatch on Sep. 4 has created a furor amongst Iranians worldwide.

POLITICS-US: Petraeus Helps Destroy Bush&#39s "Proxy War" Claim

In his prepared statement to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees last week, Gen. David Petraeus claimed that Iran is using the Quds Force to turn Shiite militias into a "Hezbollah-like force" to "fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq".

Q&A: &#39War on Terror Served Iran&#39s Interests Best&#39

Eminent writer, historian and filmmaker Tariq Ali was born in Lahore in 1943. While a student at Oxford University, he became involved in the movement against the war in Vietnam. That was the beginning of a long career in the literary arts and in peace activism that has earned him iconic status.

POLITICS-IRAN: Rafsanjani – the Man to Watch

When Iran’s reformist Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ‘keeper of the Revolution’s secrets and kingmaker’, was elected as speaker of the powerful Assembly of Experts earlier this month, it signalled a major shift in the country’s tumultuous political scene.

POLITICS: U.S. Denies Visas to Iranian Religious Leaders

A religious delegation from Iran has cancelled a scheduled visit to the United States this week after members of the group were denied visas by the State Department.

MIDDLE EAST: Bridging the Shia-Sunni Divide With Free Trade

While Iran and the United States exchange aggressive statements, the Arab countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been busy building trade relations with Tehran and charting an economic course with a potential of mending ties in a tough neighbourhood.

POLITICS-US: Ahmadinejad as Goldfinger

On the same day General David H. Petraeus delivered to Congress his much anticipated progress report on the U.S. military's "surge strategy" in Iraq, neoconservative ideologues associated with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) took aim at another one of the reputed foes of "freedom" - the Islamic Republic of Iran.

RIGHTS-IRAN: Dissidents Encouraged to Go Into Exile

The Iranian establishment has an unstated policy to deal with rising dissidence among academics, artistes and political activists - encourage them to leave the country and go into self-exile.

ECONOMY-IRAN: Headless Oil Industry Faces Crisis

Iran’s key oil industry could plunge into crisis, oil experts have warned, if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not urgently appoint a replacement for Seyed Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh who was sacked as oil minister two weeks ago in a major cabinet reshuffle.

POLITICS: Bush Indictment of Iran Tops Usual Rhetoric

The George W. Bush administration has seemingly taken advantage of the Congressional recess to escalate tensions with Iran.