TEHRAN — Iranian voters turned out in huge numbers on Friday, a late surge of interest in the presidential vote that seemed to swing the tide in the favor of the most moderate candidate in the field. But it was uncertain whether any single contestant would exceed the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff next week.   With long lines at the ... Continue reading »

American and European intelligence analysts now believe that President Bashar al-Assad’s troops have used chemical weapons against rebel forces in the civil war in Syria, an assessment that will put added pressure on a deeply divided Obama administration to develop a response to a provocation that the president himself has declared a “red line.”   ... Continue reading »

Edward Snowden was interviewed over several days in Hong Kong by Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill.   Q: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower?   A: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. ... Continue reading »

FOUR YEARS ago, voting in Iran almost triggered regime change. Millions protested President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparently fraudulent reelection over a moderately reformist opponent. The movement quickly grew into a wider challenge to the theocracy that has ruled Iran since 1979. Using arrests and violence, the country’s unelected de facto ruler, ... Continue reading »

In 1953, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, at the urging of the British M16, overthrew democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. In a declassified report completed in 1954 on the 1953 operation, the term "blowback" for the first time entered the CIA’s lexicon.   At the time, analysts were concerned that the U.S. governme ... Continue reading »

All eyes are on what it will take to prevent Iran from getting its hands on a nuclear weapon. If sanctions and diplomacy prove incapable of containing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions—and soon—a military strike to destroy or at the very least delay its program is seen as the least bad option available. Iran gaining a nuclear-weapons capability is a red l ... Continue reading »

Designated as the Hemaseh in Farsi, meaning 'epic' in English, Iranâs latest reconnaissance-combat drone was unveiled on Thursday during a ceremony attended by Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi. Brightly painted in the colors of Iranâs national flag and sporting what looked to be two dummy missiles under its wings, the domestically built drone is said ... Continue reading »

In 1990, Saddam Hussein did not understand that the world had changed with the fall of the Wall. He thought that the USSR would protect him from America after the invasion of Kuwait, and paid dearly his mistake. Abandoned by the Soviets, Iraq had to bear the cost, first of a war lost, and second of international sanctions, on a scale and harshness ... Continue reading »