We have global interests, potential threats from elsewhere, North Korea, Iran, Taiwan Straits and the like. We must be prepared for any future threat. That is why it is important that this be a transition year, 2006.
The long-term strategic goals of Iran and the long-term strategic goals of Turkey are close to the long-term strategic goals of the United States.
For years, Iran has worked to position itself to dominate the entire Middle East and to impose its version of radical Islam on society. It is actively working to destabilize Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.
Iran has every intention to build a nuclear weapon.
There's no reason we can't all live harmoniously together, and that's what I would say to the head of Iran.
Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have left the U.S. with better relations with Iran and Cuba and worse relations with allies like Israel.
Back when Saddam Hussein was in power, the Americans didn't care about his crimes. When he was gassing the Kurds and gassing Iran, they didn't care about it. When oil was at stake, somehow, suddenly, things mattered.
On Aug. 19, 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran became the first victim of a C.I.A. coup. Ten months later, on June 27, 1954, President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala became the second.
Unfortunately, the international community is not ready to deal with Iran's repeated provocations.
The internal conditions in Iran are worsening in all aspects. Poverty and unemployment are becoming more severe, despite the fact that Iran has turned into a developed and industrialized country.
Very few people are fortunate enough to walk through countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and I had seen them all. I had spoken to many on the street.
In my role as a spokesperson for Amnesty International U.S.A. and as a supporter of various charitable causes including Unlock Iran, a campaign to release prisoners of conscience in Iran, I have never been faced with the threat of intimidation or arrest.
The idea that an actress - mostly lauded for her performances in more than a dozen films - somehow represents a threat to Iran's national security is laughable at best. But in Ahangarani's case, far from anything humorous, the allegations have actually resulted in the sober prospect of real prison time.
This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?
We need to do more to stop Iran's persecution of different religious faiths, including Sunni Muslims, Christians, and Bahais. We must do more to protect the Iranian's people's right to freedom of expression.
Iranian filmmakers are not passive. They fight whenever they can, as creative expression means a lot to them. The restrictions and censorship in Iran are a bit like the British weather: one day it's sunny, the next day it's raining. You just have to hope you walk out into the sunshine.
No Israeli leader will accept a nuclear Iran.
In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.
I was born in Iran, left at a very young age - less than a year old - and grew up and was educated in the West.
Russia and Iran back Assad, but are they fighting Daesh? The answer is 'no.'
In the 1950s, Pakistan allied with the United States in something called the Central Treaty Organization. We were lined up with, at that time, Iran, ruled by the Shah, and Pakistan and Turkey as a southward shield against Soviet expansion toward the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. It was part of the containment strategy.
While the agreement provides a level of constraint on Iran's nuclear weapons program, it confers legitimacy on their nuclear threshold status, an unprecedented shift for a country with so many entanglements.
In Tehran, the 444 days of the Iran Hostage Crisis was the first world event in which you could literally have live events beamed into your living room. Now, every world event plays out on its own, and as a media event.
Iran is nothing but trouble, and always has been that.
One morning, just like 9/11, there's going to be a disaster. I have yet to see the United Nations do anything effective with either Iran or North Korea.
Because of Iran's support for terrorism, disrespect for human rights, and nuclear proliferation, it has been under U.S. and international sanctions for decades - and companies have been fined billions for circumventing those sanctions.
We cannot win this war on terror if people are undercutting us. And one way to undercut us is to empower Iran.
Those in the international community that refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.
After the heavily politicized 2007 Iran NIE, many of us in Congress found it hard to take some intelligence analysis at face value.
Iran is central to our foreign policy in the Middle East, a major player in global energy markets, and a key country in terms of our interaction with the Muslim world.
While sanctions against Iran and Syria are intended to constrain those countries' governments, they have had the unfortunate side effect of constraining activists' access to free online software and services used widely across the Middle East, including browsers, online chat applications, and online storage services.
The administration has taken its inexcusable apathy a step further, declaring that even abiding by the few token sanctions in place isn't truly necessary, as evidenced by the now 20 countries to which the Obama administration has granted waivers to continue doing business with Iran.
When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government, the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp. The funny thing is that human rights activists and Mr. Bush can never be situated in the same group.
The fact is that Iran doesn't want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.
The standards of the international community manifest firmness. Iran has no need for long-range missiles or to collaborate with terrorist organizations all over the world.
Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it.
