“The global arrogance and its allies are making efforts to change the world’s geopolitical map,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the IRGC’s second-in-command, said on Sunday.

Security is very important in Iran’s defense system, particularly at a time when centers of insecurity and crisis have been formed in the Islamic Republic’s neighboring countries and the strategy of hegemonic countries, such as the United States, Britain and some of their allies in the region, is to make geopolitical changes in the world, he added.

The senior IRGC commander emphasized that Iran monitored all moves by its enemies while at the same time displaying its defensive preparedness to establish full security, particularly in border areas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called a special meeting of his security cabinet following Iran’s testing of a ballistic missile that can reach Israel over the weekend.

The missile test, along with efforts to get world powers to cancel or fix the Iran nuclear deal, were the top priorities at the meeting, Israel Radio reported.

The referendum on independence for the Kurdish controlled territory, due to take place on 25 September, is the latest event billed as threatening the stability of Iraq and a good chunk of the Middle East. Seldom has a democratic poll in such a small place been so universally denounced by so many international powers, including the US, UK, Germany and France.

A White House statement emphasises “to the leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that the referendum is distracting from efforts to defeat Isis and stabilise the liberated areas. Holding the referendum in disputed areas is particularly provocative and destabilising.”

Regional powers like Turkey and Iran have likewise demanded that the referendum be cancelled and threatened retaliation if it is not. In Baghdad, the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has denounced it and the Supreme Court ruled that it was “unconstitutional”. But for all the sound and fury, it looks as if the vote is going ahead.

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran was cooperating with Pyongyang following the latest Tehran's ballistic missile test.

"Iran just test-fired a Ballistic Missile capable of reaching Israel. They are also working with North Korea. Not much of an agreement we have!" Trump posted on Twitter.

On Saturday, Iranian media reported that the country had successfully carried out the test launch of a new ballistic missile, dubbed Khorramshahr, with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles).

The new Iranian long range missile Khoramshahr (front) is displayed during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of its devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, on September 22,2017 in

The diplomatic and economic noose is tightening around Iraqi Kurdistan one day ahead of its historic independence referendum. On Sunday, the Iranian government announced closure of its airspace to northern Iraq's Sulaimani and Erbil Airports, at the request of Iraqi authorities. The Baghdad government has repeatedly threatened military intervention in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region should the vote proceed on Monday, which Baghdad warns could provoke invasion by neighboring states. The United States too has warned that the non-binding referendum will be “particularly provocative and destabilizing” - this as Turkey musters tanks along its border with Iraqi Kurdistan.

Opponents of the Iranian nuclear deal argue that Iran is watching North Korea’s belligerence to see what they might be able to get away with. Supporters of the deal, meanwhile, say scrapping it would send a signal to Pyongyang that the United States cannot be trusted in any potential future negotiations.

On Saturday evening, Iran announced it successfully tested a new-medium range missile. This test comes after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Friday Iran would increase its military power "as a deterrent” against hostile nations.

Iran’s Defense Minister, General Amir Hatami said that the purpose of this missile was to have "the ability to evade the enemy's air defense line and to be guided from the moment of launch until the target is hit turns Khoramshahr into a tactical missile.”

He also noted that Iran does "not seek permission from any country for producing various kinds of missile.”

Despite the fact that the JCPOA has nothing to do with regional issues, Trump administration tries to tie many ongoing issues in the Middle East to the Nuclear Deal with Iran. Why?

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani underlined that Iran-Russia relations will continue to be strengthened by furthering the ongoing plans.

Iran said on Sunday that it has blocked all flights to and from Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region at the request of Baghdad, just a day before a controversial referendum on Kurdish independence.

The referendum has been staunchly opposed by Iraq, Iran and several other key players in the region.

Iran closed its border with northern Iraq's Kurdish region on Monday, Anadolu Agency reported the country's Foreign Ministry, as saying.

A day earlier, Tehran ended flights between the territories as the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) prepared to hold a referendum on independence from Baghdad.

"At the request of Iraq, we have closed the airspace and ground borders with the Kurdish Regional Government," ministry spokesman Behram Qasimi said at a news conference in Tehran.

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran was cooperating with Pyongyang following the latest Tehran's ballistic missile test.

"Iran just test-fired a Ballistic Missile capable of reaching Israel. They are also working with North Korea. Not much of an agreement we have!" Trump posted on Twitter.

Here are excerpts from a 2007 report from award winning journalist Seymour Hersh. His report, published in the New Yorker under the heading “The Redirection,” outlines in clear language that the conspiracy to topple the governments of Syria and Iran, specifically by sponsoring terrorist groups as mercenaries against them, was conceived and initiated during the Bush years, and began to take shape in earnest in 2007.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivered another snub to the Trump administration on Friday when he said that Iran would continue its missile program in defiance of US sanctions, and to underscore the determination, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard unveiled its newest long-range ballistic missile during a military parade in Tehran.

The new missile that was introduced at the parade is capable of reaching much of the Middle East, including Israel, with a range of 1,200 miles. It's also capable of carrying several warheads. The parade in Tehran commemorated the 1980s Iraq-Iran war. Though Iran has long boasted of having missiles in the same range in its arsenal, it was the first time that the new Khoramshahr missile was displayed in public, the AP reported adding that in February, Iran test-fired the same medium-range type of missile, prompting Trump to say that the United States is "putting Iran on notice."

As Donald Trump takes to the U.N. General Assembly to demonize Iran yet again, the Trump administration is also considering a more aggressive strategy towards Iran behind closed doors, sources have told Reuters.

According to six current and former U.S. officials, the U.S. will be looking at more hostile responses to Iran’s forces, its proxy armies in Iraq and Syria, and its support for militant groups.

According to the sources, the current proposal was drafted by Defense Secretary Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, national security advisor General H.R. McMaster, and several other top officials before it was presented to President Trump at a National Security Council meeting on September 9.

The proposal will ultimately be made public before the end of September, two of the sources said. The sources requested anonymity because the draft proposal had not yet been finalized.

In comments that may provide some insight into the Trump Administration position on Iran, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson conceded that “no one” disagreed with Iran being in compliance with the P5+1 nuclear deal. He insisted, however, that this compliance was only “technically” compliance.

This led to talk of Iran violating the “spirit” of the deal, even though they are complying with all the actual written terms of the deal. Tillerson suggested that the expectation was that the deal would “remove” Iran as a threat in the eyes of the US.

Which of course is something that Iran has literally no control over. US policy is to be hostile toward Iran, and the fact that this didn’t evaporate overnight is neither surprising, nor something that anyone could’ve thought might happen as the result of the P5+1 deal, which covered only Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

US Senator Bernie Sanders has denounced President Donald Trump’s handling of the Iran nuclear accord, warning that backing away from the agreement could hurt America's ability to strike deals in the future.

Deputy Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazzayeri underlined that the US president's threat to decertify the nuclear deal with Iran would not force Tehran to give more concessions to keep the agreement alive.

Austria’s Oberbank on Thursday signed a major finance deal with over a dozen Iranian banks thus becoming one of the first European financial institutions to break the ice in providing loans for Iranian projects after the removal of sanctions against the country in early 2016.

Russia has frequently acted in ways that have effectively weakened global norms, including by weakening the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) independence in its efforts to probe secret nuclear programs, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated at the UN Security Council.

Donald Trump refused to tell Theresa May whether he intends to stick to a nuclear deal with Iran – despite her asking him outright, the US secretary of state has said.

The US president told journalists on Wednesday he had made a decision on the future of the historic agreement, but would not reveal his thinking to fellow world leaders at the United Nations.

In his speech to the UN, Trump said the deal – forged in 2015 between Iran and the US, the UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany in a landmark bid to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons – was "an embarrassment to the United States".

In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, Mohammad Javad Zarif said US wants to change the deal at Iran’s expense alone, while Washington itself is not willing to make any concessions.

The top Iranian diplomat further said that kind of position contradicted the premise of any negotiated deal. If the nuclear accord is supposed to change, then every concession Iran has made to help make the deal happen has to be reconsidered, he noted.

“Why should we discuss an addendum?,” he asked. “If you want to have an addendum, there has to be an addendum on everything.”

“Are you prepared to return to us 10 tons of enriched uranium?,” Zarif also asked, referring to the stockpile, which was shipped to Russia as part of the deal.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned that any US move to scrap Iran's nuclear deal would discourage other countries from going to the negotiating table to discuss their nuclear activities.

A collapse of the accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), would send a “terrible signal” for other diplomatic efforts, Gabriel said on the sidelines of a UN meeting in New York on Thursday.

“What should motivate countries like North Korea or others to enter into negotiations in the future when the one example of such a deal is being destroyed?” he asked.

Denmark's Danske Bank signed a €500 million finance contract with 10 Iranian banks on Thursday, becoming the second European lender to ink such an agreement with Iran.

Saman Bank, Bank Mellat, Tejarat Bank, Bank Melli Iran, Bank of Industry and Mine, Bank Sepah, Bank Pasargad Iran, EN Bank, Bank Keshavarzi, and Parsian Bank will act as the agent banks, providing civil projects in Iran with the Danish fund, Central Bank of Iran website reported.

At the Iranian ambassador's residence in a in Vienna attended by Ahmad Araqchi, CBI's deputy for foreign exchange affairs and Mohammad Khazaei, deputy minister of economy.

Germany will do all it can to persuade the United States not to abandon the Iranian nuclear agreement, whatever the outcome of German elections on Sunday, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday.

Gabriel told reporters any US move to cancel the Iran deal and impose new sanctions on Tehran would discourage powers such as North Korea from negotiating an end to their own nuclear programmes.

Germany would work with the European Union, France, Britain and where possible China and Russia to press Washington to preserve the deal, under which Iran curbed its nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, he said on the sidelines of a UN meeting in New York.

A couple hours before and a few blocks away from where President Donald Trump delivered a speech to the United Nations on Monday, a group of anti-Iran deal advocates held their annual conference at the midtown Manhattan Roosevelt Hotel. Perhaps newly emboldened by the current administration’s hostility to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—at the UN, Trump declared the Iran deal “an embarrassment to the United States”—a billionaire wearing a blue, three-piece suit took the stage and delivered a diatribe, invoking anti-Muslim falsehoods and a series of crude animal metaphors to explain Iran’s predatory nature.

Thomas Kaplan made his public debut as a supporter of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) in a surprise appearance that was not listed in the event’s program. Kaplan is one of the key funders of UANI, an anti-Iran deal advocacy group that targets companies doing business in Iran and even goes as far as pushing for a de facto blockade on food and medicine to Iran.

The UK deepened its economic relationship with Iran in a solar deal worth $720mn less than a day after US President called the Arabian Gulf nation a “rogue state” and threat to global security.

As the date of the Kurdish independence referendum approaches, oil industry moguls should be concerned about an oil production war between Iran and headless Iraq.

On Wednesday, seven senior Democratic senators wrote a letter to Trump’s cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis, to ask them to provide any information they have to prove that Tehran has not been committed to the 2015 agreement, dubbed as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Since Trump took office, the US has launched an attack against the nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and the world powers, including Washington, threatening to abandon the deal on multiple occasions.

In discussing President Trump, there is always the soft prejudice of low expectations – people praise him for reading from a Teleprompter even if his words make little sense – but there is no getting around the reality that his maiden address to the United Nations General Assembly must rank as one of the most embarrassing moments in America’s relations with the global community.

Trump offered a crude patchwork of propaganda and bluster, partly delivered as a campaign speech praising his own leadership – boasting about the relatively strong U.S. economy that he mostly inherited from President Obama – and partly reflecting his continued subservience to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has lashed out at US President Donald Trump for his “ignorant and spiteful” comments against the Iranian nation.

Delivering a speech at the 72nd UN General Assembly session in New York on Wednesday, President Rouhani said the “ignorant, ugly, spiteful literature of the US president, which was full of false information and groundless allegations, against the Iranian nation” were beneath the dignity of the United Nations.

In 2002, Bush used his UN speech to argue for action against Iraq. Let’s hope Trump’s first UN speech isn’t the opening salvo in a preventable war with Iran

Now Israel has a problem. What’s good for Washington is not necessarily good for Europe…

RT International reports today…

All parties to Iran’s nuclear agreement remain in full compliance with the deal, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said after the Wednesday P5+1 powers’ meeting. She emphasized that the deal had potentially averted a military incursion into Iran.

“This is an agreement that prevented a nuclear program and potentially prevented a military intervention,” Mogherini said, following a meeting of ministers representing the six world powers and Iran on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Calling the negotiations a “frank” discussion, Mogherini said that it boiled down to all sides agreeing that no country has breached the terms of the deal. “We all agreed on the fact that there is no violation, that the nuclear program-related aspects, which is all the agreement, are being fulfilled,” she said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday called for support for the July 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

In a sign of the ongoing internal dissent over ending the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran, multiple sources told the Washington Free Beacon that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley have been at odds over the deal, with Trump's U.N. ambassador privately expressing dismay with Tillerson over his continued efforts to preserve the nuclear agreement.

President Trump is reportedly inclined to decertify the nuclear accord with Iran, instead putting the responsibility on Congress to determine if the U.S. will exit the deal.

NBC News, citing four sources, reported on Wednesday that should Trump shift the decision to Congress, he will push European powers to renegotiate parts of the agreement.

Most recently, some pundits, including myself, have been warning of an impending war with Iran. To be sure, the urging to strike Iran comes from many quarters, to include generals in the Administration who always think first in terms of settling problems through force, from a Saudi government obsessed with fear over Iranian hegemony, and, of course, from Israel itself. But what makes the war engine run is provided by American Jews who have taken upon themselves the onerous task of starting a war with a country that does not conceivably threaten the United States. They have been very successful at faking the Iranian threat, so much so that nearly all Republican and most Democratic congressmen, as well as much of the media, seem to be convinced that Iran needs to be dealt with firmly, most definitely by using the U.S. military, and the sooner the better.
———

Was Donald Trump's speech to the UN optimistic realism, Trumpian populism or a just a goldmine of hypocrisy, propaganda and outrageous lies? Trump's meeting with Bibi Netanyahu yesterday no doubt influenced this jingoistic and threatening speech. It sounded like Bibi wrote it for him. Bibi has been crying wolf about Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program for over 20 years. This kind of speech always worked really well before the advent of the internet. In the past, the mainstream media effectively kept us in the dark about what was really going on in the rest of the world so this kind of speech was readily accepted by the ignorant proles.

Now, with a few clicks of the mouse on a computer, just about everything he said is quickly exposed as no more than ludicrous propaganda and the raving of a clueless madman pushing another country's agenda. I'm sure this was obvious to everyone in that room.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reaffirmed Russia's commitment to maintaining the sustainability of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program.
The meeting of the Six (Russia, the UK, China, the US, France and Germany) and Iran was held on Wednesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

"Lavrov confirmed that Russia will continue to support the sustainability of the JCPOA," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a Facebook statement, reported TASS.

The US begrudges North Korea for having a few nuclear weapons while having more nuclear weapons than any country on Earth, Prof. Dan Kovalik, the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, told RT, commenting on Donald Trump’s UN address. Other analysts joined the discussion.

Donald Trump delivered his first address to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday. The US president lashed out at North Korea, Syria and Iran in his speech.

Dan Kovalik says he doesn’t think it’s appropriate to speak about defending the interests of one particular nation, America, at the UN.

Most of his speech was devoted to how Israel is thriving economically, politically and scientifically under his leadership. In keeping with his longstanding tradition, he veered off to the threat posed by the nuclear agreement with Iran. Netanyahu said that the signatories should either "fix it or nix it," adding, "Today, I have a simple message for Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei, the dictator of Iran: The light of Israel will never be extinguished. Those who threaten us with annihilation put themselves in mortal peril. Israel will defend itself with the full force of our arms and the full power of our convictions."

If Mr. Trump makes good on his threat to pull out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, how will he then convince the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, that America will honor the commitment to integrate North Korea into the world community if only it disarms — the demand Mr. Trump made from the podium of the United Nations.

The French president emphasized the influential role of Iran in the Syria peace process, saying no “efficient” solution could be found to the six-year-old crisis in the Arab state without the Islamic Republic.

“If we do not resolve the Syrian problem with Iran around the table, then we will not have an efficient response, because Iran today is among the powers that have an influence on the ground,” Macron told reporters in New York on Tuesday, Press TV reported.

A group of hackers suspected of working in Iran for its government is targeting the aviation and petrochemical industries in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and South Korea, a cybersecurity firm warned Wednesday.

This time the hackers were only conducting espionage, via job-recruiting links. But researchers worry the group dubbed APT33 has a capability to launch more destructive attacks.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that US President Donald Trump’s UN address is not worth of a reply.

"Trump's ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times - not the 21st century UN - unworthy of a reply," Zarif tweeted on Tuesday.

“Fake empathy for Iranians fools no one," he stressed.

This is the latest gimmick in Trump’s desperate efforts to kill the nuclear deal with Iran: by focusing on Tehran’s objectionable non-nuclear policies and false claims of the unevenness of the Iran deal, Trump is arguing that sustaining the international accord can no longer be justified since it doesn’t address the totality of America’s concerns with Iran.

Problem is: there is no deal that could address the totality of US-Iran tensions unless Trump is willing to engage in extensive diplomacy with Iran for such a grand bargain. Thus far, Trump has shown zero interest in negotiations with Iran. And mindful of how he has conducted himself on the world stage, significant doubts exist as to whether his administration has the capacity and competence to face Iran diplomatically.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran said Tuesday that if President Donald Trump backs out of the 2015 nuclear deal, "no one will trust America again" and his country could then resume work on expanding its nuclear capabilities.

Rouhani raised that possibility in an interview with NBC News just before Trump spoke for the first time as president before the United Nations General Assembly, where he called Tehran a "murderous regime" and the nuclear deal "an embarrassment to the United States."

I spoke recently at a conference on America’s war party where afterwards an elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody has mentioned Israel in this conference and we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu? Shouldn’t we start calling them out and not letting them get away with it?”

Yesterday, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the United Nations in a speech that served as a kind of appendix to Donald Trump’s controversial, bellicose declaration that was delivered hours earlier.

Both speeches predictably focused on Iran and both leaders told a great deal of untruths and half-truths about the situation. Here are some of the most glaring untruths, followed by a factual explanation of the situation.

The two are bound by their mutual loathing of Obama’s foreign policy deal, even as it sets them apart from other world leaders at the UN general assembly

We’ve seen this movie before, complete with trumped-up charges of WMD. Americans must speak out now to head off another disastrous military adventure.

Israeli leader tries to rally support to overturn the Iran nuclear agreement that he claims has emboldened an ambitious Iran to spread its influence across the region

Once again, the annual United Nations General Assembly is taking place in New York City with U.S. President Donald Trump set to take center stage as he is expected to focus on the North Korean Crisis and the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

As the Western media’s attention has been focused on the North Korea crisis (which is also another very serious matter), another development has been taking place in Tel Aviv, as calls for action by Israeli officials against Iran’s Nuclear Program although it’s not a new development (it’s been going on for many years). Channel 2 on Israeli TV reported that Mossad chief Yossi Cohen is calling on the Israeli government to take action against the Iranian government. The Times of Israel reported that

“Channel 2 on Sunday paraphrased Cohen as asserting that “Today’s Iran is the North Korea of yesterday, and so we need to act now so that we don’t wake up to [an Iranian] bomb.”

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Donald Trump at the White House and push the U.S. to withdraw from the nuclear accord with Iran. Netanyahu will present an argument that Trump already has come to accept: America’s adherence to the nuclear deal cannot solely depend on Iran’s compliance with the agreement, but also whether Iran’s other policies challenge US national interests. It’s a more honest argument compared to the slogans Netanyahu has used in the past. But it is also a line that fundamentally contradicts Netanyahu’s central message of the past decades: That Iran’s nuclear program constitutes an existential threat to Israel.

Israel and the U.S. inaugurated the first American military base on Israeli soil on Monday, which will serve dozens of soldiers operating a missile defense system.

The move comes at a time of growing Israeli concerns about archenemy Iran's development of long-range missiles. Together with the U.S., Israel has developed a multilayered system of defenses against everything from long-range guided missile attacks from Iran to crude rockets fired from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

The base's opening is largely symbolic and isn't expected to bring operational changes. But the Israeli military says that along with other measures, it sends a message of readiness to Israel's enemies.

"It's a message that says Israel is better prepared. It's a message that says Israel is improving the response to threats," said Brig. Gen. Zvika Haimovich, the commander of Israel's aerial defense.

"It's not clear to me why the Secretary of State wishes to at once usurp the powers of the Congress and then to derail his boss's rapprochement with the Israeli government." — Foreign policy operative, quoted in the Washington Free Beacon.

Since he was sworn in as Secretary of State on February 1, Rex Tillerson and his advisors at the State Department have made a number of statements and policy decisions that contradict President Trump's key campaign promises on foreign policy, especially regarding Israel and Iran.

"Tillerson was supposed to clean house, but he left half of them in place and he hid the other half in powerful positions all over the building. These are career staffers committed to preventing Trump from reversing what they created." — Veteran foreign policy analyst, quoted in the Free Beacon.

Even when Israeli leaders, unlike Netanyahu, kept a low profile, it took years to shake off the accusation that the country pushed for the Iraq war

President Reuven Rivlin made the remarks at his annual Rosh Hashana toast.

Knowing US President Trump has no lawful cause to withdraw from the nuclear agreement, the Israeli political echelon is using his election promise to pressure him to compensate Israel by acting against Iranian presence in Syria.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN in New York Monday night, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani went on to add, “exiting such an agreement would carry a high cost for the United States of America, and I do not believe Americans would be willing to pay such a high cost for something that will be useless for them."

Rouhani said such an action by the Trump administration "will yield no results for the United States but at the same time it will generally decrease international trust placed in Washington."

PM presents US president with plan on how to go about changing the agreement, argues that other world powers will likely follow US's lead

During the talks with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Rouhani called on the global body to do its best to implement the World Against Violence and Extremism (WAVE) resolution.

France demands the full implementation of the JCPOA and deems any fresh negotiations on the deal “meaningless,” Macron said in a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the annual session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

While President Trump fell just short of "fire and fury," his first address to The United Nations was very clear in its perspective on North Korea (Iran and Syria).

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Donald Trump at the White House and push the U.S. to withdraw from the nuclear accord with Iran. Netanyahu will present an argument that Trump already has come to accept: America’s adherence to the nuclear deal cannot solely depend on Iran’s compliance with the agreement, but also whether Iran’s other policies challenge U.S. national interests. It’s a more honest argument compared to the slogans Netanyahu has used in the past. But it is also a line that fundamentally contradicts Netanyahu’s central message of the past decades: That Iran’s nuclear program constitutes an existential threat to Israel.

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu will meet in New York on Monday, at the start of a week in which they intend to launch a concerted assault at the United Nations against the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The US and Israeli leaders are expected to use their speeches to the UN general assembly on Tuesday to highlight the threat to Middle East stability and security represented by Tehran.

Top Trump officials signal US could stay in Paris climate agreement
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While anxiety about Iran’s expansive role in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon is widely shared, Trump and Netanyahu’s antipathy to the multilateral deal agreed in Vienna two years ago binds them together, even as it sets them apart from the overwhelming majority of other world leaders attending the annual UN summit.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) operatives managed to infiltrate US military command centers and obtain documents allegedly proving collusion between Washington and ISIS terrorists in the region, a top Iranian commander claims.

The claim was made by IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh on Friday during a TV interview.

“We have documents showing the behavior of the Americans in Iraq and Syria. We know what the Americans did there; what they neglected and how they supported Daesh [Islamic State – IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL],” Press TV cited the commander as saying.

Israeli officials have reportedly accused the UN body tasked with ensuring Tehran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal of ignoring information it received detailing forbidden nuclear military research and development being carried out at several sites across Iran.

The United States has been running a particularly reckless and transparent bluff on the world.

‘We must defeat ISIS’ has been the repetitive mantra bellowed from pulpits and podiums by deceitful US officials. But this bit of shameless Orwellian newspeak is coming from the very same rogue policy makers who have been the primary source of arms and largesse to that group and its sordid affiliates across Syria, Libya, Iraq and elsewhere.

Netanyahu to present Trump with Israel's position that nuclear deal with Iran must be cancelled or significantly changed, with harsher sanctions, increased supervision and commitment from Tehran to stop supporting Hezbollah and Hamas; PM to also present these demands during UN speech.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani left Tehran for New York on Sunday morning to attend the 72nd regular session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Iran’s on-off space program has received a boost from Washington’s irritation at a recent satellite launch by the middle eastern nation, with Tehran dusting off plans for a manned mission, perhaps with Moscow’s assistance.

“Ten skilled pilots are currently undergoing difficult and intensive training so that two of them … can be selected for the space launch,” the head of the science ministry’s aerospace research center, Fathollah Omi, told the state broadcaster last week.

Assisting Tehran with sidestepping an ongoing Washington sanctions regime against the country, China has opened a $10 billion line of credit intended to finance energy, transportation, water and other key Iranian infrastructure projects.

Russia has rejected a request made by Israel to create a large buffer zone on the border of the Golan Heights in an attempt to keep Iranian forces and their militias around 70 kilometers away from Israeli territories, political sources in Tel Aviv have said.

Israel had asked Russia and the US not to have a presence of Iranian forces or their militias to the west of the road connecting Damascus and the city of Al-Suwayda in southwest Syria.

The Russians only promised that the Iranians and their allies would not come any closer to Israel than five kilometers from the armistice lines between those of Bashar Assad’s regime and the rebels, the sources said.

The United States must consider the full threat it says Iran poses to the Middle East when formulating its new policy toward Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday, adding that Iran had breached the spirit of a 2015 nuclear deal.

Tillerson, made the comments during a visit to Britain to see Prime Minister Theresa May and foreign minister Boris Johnson. The trip was billed as focusing on the relief effort after Hurricane Irma, how to respond to North Korea’s nuclear test, and resolving the political deadlock in Libya.

But he was outspoken in his criticism of Iran when asked whether he believed it was meeting the obligations of a 2015 international nuclear agreement designed to curb an Iranian nuclear program in return for lifting most Western sanctions.

Tillerson cited the preface of the nuclear deal, which calls on Iran to contribute positively to regional security.

Iran's permanent Ambassador to the IAEA called for complete prohibition of any cooperation and transfer of nuclear equipment and materials to Zionist Regime.

Gunmen and suicide car bombers on Thursday killed at least 52 people including Iranians near the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, in an attack claimed by the Daesh militant group.

The attackers struck at midday, opening fire on a restaurant before getting into a car and blowing themselves up at a nearby security checkpoint, officials said.

Israel demanded a buffer zone from the border on the Golan Heights, to the west of the road connecting Damascus and the city of Al-Suwayda in southwest Syria

The Trump administration plans to announce new sanctions against Iran as soon as Thursday while also taking steps to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran for now by extending the sanctions relief in the accord, senior administration officials familiar with the matter said.

The moves come in advance of President Donald Trump's first appearance at the United Nations General Assembly next week.

Beginning last Monday, soldiers and reservists alike practiced simulating a 10-day-long war with Hezbollah, an Iranian-sponsored Shi’a militant group located mainly in Lebanon. Israel even prepared two field hospitals, as well as trucks and helicopters for evacuating simulated casualties.

According to the Independent, the drill began with small border skirmishes and escalated into a full-on war with the aim of completely obliterating the Lebanese opponents. Even the soldiers playing the role of Hezbollah were to be dressed in the group’s traditional attire and will don their yellow and green flag.

“The purpose of the drill is to test the fitness of the Northern Command and the relevant battalions during an emergency,” one IDF officer told Haaretz.

The drill, known as the “Light of the Grain” drill, took 18 months to plan. It utilizes fighter planes, ships, submarines, drones, cyber and canine units, and Israel’s missile defense system.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would meet U.S. President Donald Trump later this month during a visit to New York, where he will address the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 26.

Netanyahu spoke to reporters accompanying him on a trip to Latin America before his plane left Tel Aviv for Argentina on Sunday night. He will also visit Colombia and Mexico before heading to New York.

In Washington, the White House did not initially respond to a request for a comment on a meeting between the two leaders.

"From Mexico I will go to New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly and there I will meet my friend, President Donald Trump," Netanyahu said.

He added best wishes "to all our friends in the U.S. to overcome these difficult hours (during Hurricane Irma)."

The House adopted measures on Wednesday to prevent sales of commercial aircraft to Iran, despite warnings from some Democrats that it would undermine the JCPOA.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) offered two amendments to a 2018 government spending package that would specifically prohibit the use of funds to authorize financial transactions for the sales and prevent the Office of Foreign Assets Control from clearing licenses to allow aircraft sales, Hill reported.

Iranian Leader’s Senior Advisor on International Affair said US measures to prevent sales of commercial aircraft to Iran undermines the JCPOA, however Iran does not need the US.
During an assembly with the deans and professors of universities, Ali Akbar Velayati said “preventing sales of aircrafts to Iran is another proof that we should not rely on the US and their allies. Iran doesn’t need the US to accomplish its goals.” He also remarked that this decision was not unexpected.

The latest round in their campaign was U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s disingenuous and falsehood-filled speech at the American Enterprise Institute last week. The speech is useful in one sense: it provides a handy summary of just about every creative and mendacious argument that die-hard opponents of the JCPOA have been cooking up since the agreement was signed. Unfortunately, it is neither an accurate guide to the agreement, to its current status, nor more importantly, to U.S. interests.

Among other things, Haley claimed — falsely — that the deal “gave Iran what it wanted up-front, in exchange for temporary promises to deliver what we want.” The truth is about 180 degrees from this claim: Iran gave up enriched uranium, destroyed 13,000 centrifuges, dismantled the Arak reactor, let the U.N. install monitoring devices, implemented the NPT Additional Protocol, and a host of other measures — all before the United States or anyone else began lifting sanctions.

The Iranian company Mabna will sell five gas-fired power plants to the heavily damaged city of Aleppo for about $155 million.

Russia has taken the final step to grant a major loan to Iran for the development of a power plant in the country's south thus moving close to a pledge of providing the Islamic Republic with over €2 billion for infrastructure projects.

In an insane Machiavellian screed, American-Jewish archaeologist and Zionist propagandist Alex Joffe has suggested that the nascent West-Iran rapprochement in the form of the nuclear deal be used as an opportunity for criminal subversion and sabotage now that Tehran will ostensibly open up its economy to Western business investment.

In a July 14, 2015, column for the Times of Israel titled “The Deal with Iran: How to Make Lemonade out of Lemons,” the Zionist extremist outlines a plethora of ways that Iran can be undermined and destabilized. Joffe called upon “those interested in the two goals of an Iran free of nuclear weapons and free of religious fascism” to heed his words, insisting that the West-Iran nuclear deal is perhaps “a moment of opportunity” to infiltrate and destroy the Persian nation from within.

While announcing continued studies to send humans to space, the head of Iran’s Aerospace Research Institute (ARI) said they may try sending a robot or a live creature before the final stage of sending a human.
Regarding the project for sending a live creature to space which was halted, the head of ARI Fathollah Ommi stated “we have successfully launched a monkey to space, and now we are conducting research to send a man to space.”

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is responsible for verification of the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran. This means they offer monthly assessments, all of which have affirmed Iran is in total compliance with its requirements under the deal.

Monthly reminders of that fact are increasingly seen as insufficient, however, with the US government publicly attacking the pact and making wild accusations of unspecific Iranian violations. Now, IAEA officials feel obliged to publicly defend the concept of a deal, the nature of this specific deal, and Iran’s compliance all at once.

IAEA chief Amano Yukiya today defended the deal’s verification program as the “most robust” ever, noting that the IAEA has dramatically increased its number of inspections in Iran since the deal was signed, calling the pact a “clear and significant gain.”

The prime minister must demand from President Trump that he freeze, change or cancel the Iran nuclear deal,” Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said on Monday at the IDC Herzliya International Institute for Counter-Terrorism conference.

“The lesson from North Korea,” Katz continued, “is that talks and compromise, in place of taking a stark position, with dictators who act openly and clandestinely to obtain nuclear abilities will in the end lead to crossing the threshold and to changing the rules of the game.”

US-backed forces and Syrian government troops, supported by Russia and Iran, look set to come into contact as they each make separate advances against Isis in Syria.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an offensive against Isis along the border with Iraq on Saturday, bringing them into a race with government forces marching in the same direction against the extremists.

The duelling battles for Deir Ezzor highlight the importance of the oil-rich eastern province, which has become the latest focus of the international war against tIsis, raising concerns of an eventual clash between the two sides.

READ MORE
While defeat of Isis dominates attention, al-Qaeda gets stronger

The head of the U.N. agency monitoring Iran's compliance with a deal crimping its nuclear program says Tehran is honoring the agreement — an assessment that the White House is questioning as it mulls upping the pressure on the Islamic Republic.

Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency says Monday that the terms Iran accepted "are being implemented."

The U.S. administration has faced two 90-day certification deadlines to state whether Iran was meeting the conditions needed to continue enjoying sanctions relief under the deal and has both times backed away from a showdown. But U.S. President Donald Trump more recently has said he does not expect to certify Iran's compliance again. The next deadline is in mid-October.

Amano spoke in Vienna at the start of a 35-nation IAEA board meeting.

Foreign media reports on Iran-North Korea nuclear cooperation is not thought-out, and far from reality, a senior Iranian official said on Monday.

Britain's Telegraph newspaper is reporting that U.K. officials fear that Iran or Russia may have helped North Korea’s "sudden advancement" in the development of nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s sudden advancement in developing nuclear weapons may be due to secret support from Iran, British officials fear.

The Foreign Office is investigating whether “current and former nuclear states” helped Kim Jong-Un in his drive to mount nuclear warheads on missiles.

An Iranian military vessel confronted an American warship in the Gulf and warned it to stay away from a damaged Iranian fishing boat, Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday, but the U.S. Navy denied any direct contact with Iranian forces.

The American vessel turned away after the warning from the Iranian ship, which belonged to the naval branch of the Iranian army, according to Tasnim. The Iranian military vessel then towed the fishing boat, which had sent out a distress signal after taking on water, back to shore.

While UN ambassador Nikki Haley certainly didn’t come to the American Enterprise Institute Tuesday to praise the nuclear agreement with Iran, she insisted she wasn’t there to bury it either.

But we think she doth protest too much. Because that is exactly what she set out to do.

“I’m not making the case for decertifying (the agreement),” she told her rapt AEI audience. “I’m just saying if he (president) should decertify, he has the grounds.”

Haley then warned for what would not be the last time that we shouldn’t just assume that the Iranians were “doing the right thing.”

“What if they weren’t doing the right thing?” Haley presupposed, “And when that 10-year (expiration) hits … they start a nuclear war?”

While refusing to confirm or deny reports of Israel’s overnight attack on a Syrian military base, IDF military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Harzi Halevi bragged of the Israeli military’s capabilities, saying they would continue to attack enemies “near and far.”

Maj. Gen. Halevi made it very clear that when he says “enemies,” he mans Iran, playing up the “threat” posed by Iranian forces in Syria, as well as Iranian forces in Iran. He played up the “precise intelligence” which Israel has for targeting them everywhere in the region.

These comments were echoed by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who also dodged the question about attacking Syria, but said that Israel was “ready and determined to defend ourselves,” also playing up the idea that this would be against Iran.

According to Iranian parliamentarian Morteza Saffari Natanzi, who is a member of the country’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Iran is against nuclear weapons tests by any country and strongly condemns Pyongyang’s latest test of an alleged hydrogen bomb, the Iran Front Page reported.

"Based on a religious decree by Iran's leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], Tehran is totally against any production of weapons of mass destruction," he said in an interview.

Iran has a nuclear program that included a research reactor, uranium mines, uranium processing facilities and uranium enrichment plants. It maintained for decades that its nuclear program was purely peaceful and civil, but was slammed repeatedly with sanctions by the US and the UN, alleging that Iran was secretly trying to develop a nuclear weapons program.

Immediately after Israel's latest unprovoked strike on Syria we posed the question, did Benjamin Netanyahu just panic? The answer is yes, Israel is now acting from a position of desperation as it has failed in its goal of regime change in Syria. Overnight (Wed. evening/Thursday early morning), Israel attacked a Syrian military base near the town of Masyaf at about 3:00 a.m. which Syria has now confirmed in a statement that warns of "serious repercussions". Syria reported two troop deaths in the attack. It appears to have been a massive strike - grainy photos show a large fireball lighting up the night sky outside of Masyaf.

But this is the reason for Israeli media and defense officials quickly claiming that the strike at Masyaf was on a chemical weapons facility: they know the "humanitarian" angle sells in the West, especially when coupled with allegations of civilians being gassed.

Israeli warplanes struck a military position near the Mediterranean coast in western Syria Thursday, killing two soldiers, the Syrian army said, in a stronghold of President Bashar Assad that is also heavily protected by the Russians and Iranians.

The airstrike targeted a facility near the town of Masyaf, in Hama province, described by some as a missile producing factory, amid Israeli outrage over Iran's growing influence in the war-torn country.

Other reports suggested the facility was tied to Syria's chemical weapons program.

In a statement, the Syrian army said the Israeli warplanes fired several missiles from Lebanese air space, and warned of the "dangerous repercussions of such hostile acts on the security and stability of the region."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Tuesday said President Donald Trump would be justified if he denied Iranian compliance to the nuclear accord when it comes up for a quarterly review next month, though she said she does not know what Trump will decide.

In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., Haley detailed a strong case for Trump to declare Iran in violation of the agreement, warning the United States will be "dealing with the next North Korea" if the regime is left unchecked.

"We're allowing them to have behavior that's in violation of the resolution right in front of us," she said. "We're allowing them to sit there and actually tell the [International Atomic Energy Agency] that they're not going to let them inspect military sites where we know they have had covert nuclear operations in the past. What I want the country to understand is we need to wake up."

What the Iranians negotiated about was not so much the “bomb” – to be or not to be – but about their pride and their position in the world and their right to become a thriving economic and political power inured from sanctions or military threats. (Sanctions were imposed before the nuclear issue came to the fore.)

The nuclear program was first and foremost about creating leverage so that Iran could regain the sort of respect that the offspring of the Persian Empire once was given. Second, it was about making sure that Iran is not found short when its oil reserves start to shrink. (Iran also has heavily invested in solar energy.)

For Iran, negotiations were a suggestive game of hide and seek, played in front of all-angled, reflecting mirrors. They were not about actually building a bomb or, as we used to say in Pakistan’s pre-bomb days, of being “a screwdriver away from completing a bomb”.

Israel faces an uncomfortable truth: it will have to adapt to a shrinking role in the Middle East

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s latest report on Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will “complicate" the efforts made by US President Donald Trump’s administration to “derail” the agreement, says a political analyst.

“The Trump administration’s hullabaloo about controlling or visiting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s military centers is worth nothing,” Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said on Sunday.

He also stressed that the US insistence on inspection of Iran’s military bases is both in contradiction to the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and lacking in credibility when taking into account the country’s national security.

n their latest monthly statement on the P5+1 nuclear deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has once again confirmed that Iran is in total compliance with the deal, and that its low-enriched uranium stockpile is well within limits.

This is the statement they’ve issued every time since the deal was implemented, but comes at an increasingly important time, as President Trump has repeatedly claimed he considers Iran to be in violation is some non-specific way.

It also comes amid calls from US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley for the IAEA to inspect all of Iran’s conventional military facilities, to try to look for some violations. The IAEA, however, has insisted that there is no need for this.

United Nations watchdogs have said that they don’t believe it necessary to search Iranian military sites to verify that they are in compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, as they do not suspect any misdoings on the facilities. The US has strongly pushed the UN to inspect Iranian military sites, which have not been investigated thus far.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says it is not going to inspect Iran's military sites despite US pressures to do so.

“We’re not going to visit a military site like Parchin just to send a political signal,” Reuters cited an unnamed IAEA official as saying, referring to a military complex located 30 kilometers from the capital, Tehran.

The comments came after US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley met last week with IAEA officials in an attempt to push the UN nuclear watchdog into requesting inspections of Iranian military sites.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamamd Javad Zarif rejected US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley's remarks on the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the world powers, and said she is not well informed of the content of the agreement.

Decades of U.S. diplomacy with Iran, including the Obama administration's landmark nuclear accord, may leave Israeli military action as the only option to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, according to former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.

"I don't make any disguise of the idea that ultimately it may take an Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear program to stop it," Bolton told the Washington Free Beacon. "I wish we weren't at that point, but this is what 25 years of negotiations with Iran gets you."

Russia does not have any information that anyone is preparing an attack on Israel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.

Israel has been pushing hard on Washington, recently having sent a high-level combined intelligence and military delegation to confer with National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and Special Mideast Envoy Jason Greenblatt to explain the alleged Iranian threat. And the neocon chorus is also signaling that it expects the Trump Administration to do something. Frederick Hof of the hardline Atlantic Council recently wrote that the fundamental mistake made by Washington consisted of not invading Syria and installing an acceptable government years ago, which would have kept Iran out.

Although Iranian presence in Syria is indeed growing Iran isn’t building any naval or air bases in Syria. Moreover, many experts doubt that the Iranian Air Force can handle a real deployment in Syria. However, Iran has mutliple facilities used as logistic bases across the country.

In turn, Israel is likely trying to create a pretexts that it may use later if it decides to intervene in the Syrian south or to conduct more air operations against the Syrian Arab Army.

French President Emmanuel Macron has become the latest world leader to come out in support of a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, saying France sees “no alternative” to the agreement.

He said the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), had facilitated a constructive relationship with Iran.

“There is no alternative to the non-proliferation agenda. It enables a constructive and demanding relationship with Iran,” he told some 200 French ambassadors gathered in Paris.

Iranian government spokesperson Mohammad Baqer Nobakht stated, "Iran's military sites are off limits."

In response to U.S. insistence that United Nations' nuclear inspectors visit Iran's military bases, the Iranian government has categorized the demand as “merely a dream.”

Reports out of the US intelligence community suggest that President Trump’s cabinet push to declare Iran in violation of the P5+1 nuclear deal has expanded into pressure against intelligence analysts themselves to try to invent some sort of justification for the claim Trump desperately wants to make.

At the same time, officials say that the beating the intelligence community took for its role in lying the US into war in 2003 is informing its decision on the matter,and that many are very resistant to letting their assessments become politicized.

Former CIA analyst Ned Price was very frank about the matter, saying “they told me there was a sense of revulsion. There was a sense of deja vu. There was a sense of ‘we’ve seen this movie before’.” Other officials suggested Trump made his conclusion first and is now trying to get the intelligence community to find evidence to back it up.

When politicians are feeling the heat, they start a war and their popularity goes up even if the war is unnecessary or completely ridiculous. Donald Trump, the presidential candidate who promised that he would not take the nation into another Middle Eastern war, did so when he launched a fifty-nine cruise missile barrage against a Syrian Air Base even before he knew for sure what had happened on the ground. It was totally stupid but proved to be popular, even among talking heads and Congressmen, some of whom described his action as “presidential” in the best sense of the word.

Israel warned Russia of dire consequences if Iran is allowed to continue on its current path in Syria.

There is no doubt that Vladimir Putin is the world’s most powerful President. By comparison, while China’s Xi Jinping is highly powerful and intelligent, China’s leadership retains a collective element while in Russia, Vladimir Putin maintains an unwritten but obvious veto power over all major decisions.

By the same extrapolation it is abundantly clear that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader is the world’s most powerful liar. His power comes from the fact that he is in charge of the highest portion of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, including nuclear weapons.

His dishonesty is immediately revealed by his statements about Iran. When speaking in front of the Russian President, Netanyahu said,

“…where the defeated Islamic State (Daesh) group vanishes, Iran is stepping in”.

This statement is disingenuous on many levels. First of all, Netanyahu stated to Putin that he felt that Iran is a danger and secondly, that this danger is tantamount to that of Daesh.