Introduction This paper is the first in a series of three dealing with the rift in Iran's top echelon between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which emerged into the open in May 2011. This rift has important ramifications for Iranian politics and also for the shape that the country will take, as it veers between two ideological/political streams: the conservative Islamic revolutionary stream and the messianic Islamic revolutionary stream. This first paper, Part I, ...
Following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi Prince Khaled bin Talal, which aired on Al-Resalah TV and on Rotana Khalijiyya TV on December 2, 2011 : Prince Khaled bin Talal : "The Americans have no friends. All they care about is their interests. Their mode of operation was recently demonstrated in Pakistan, where they killed 24 people. Since they come in helicopters and airplanes, since they use advanced missiles, and since they wear fine clothes and use state-of-the-art technology – it ...
A lengthy article titled "Refutation of the Holocaust Myth," published by the Iranian daily Tehran Times in 2006 and authored by one Saleha Khan, makes familiar Holocaust-denial claims: Anne Frank's diary is a fake, the actual number of Jews in Europe before and after World War II make it impossible for six million of them to have been killed, Hitler encouraged Jews to emigrate but did not put them in concentration camps – which "were used for the detention of political opponents and ...
Imran Khan (in black jacket in inset) at the Lahore rally (Image courtesy: Roznama Express) On October 30, 2011, Pakistani-cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan held a massive political rally in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province. Given that his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is a very small party with no mass support base, the Lahore rally attracted huge crowds, due largely to Khan's public campaign against the U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan. His ability to draw huge crowds has been ...
On October 7, 2011, the private Tunisian satellite TV channel Nessma aired the award-winning French animated film Persepolis , which is based on Iranian-born illustrator Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel and tells of the challenges she faced growing up in Iran during the 1979 revolution. The airing of the film, which was dubbed into Tunisian Arabic, was followed by a 90-minute debate on religious fundamentalism that focused on the similarity between the situation in Iran in 1979 ...
'Introduction: Iranian Regime's Policy of Promoting Holocaust Denial For years, the Iranian regime has used Holocaust denial as a key means of challenging the establishment of the State of Israel, thereby denying its right to exist. 1 The regime has promoted this policy in statements by its senior officials, by enlisting government media organs, and through a range of web-based activities. For example, at a 2009 conference in Tehran in support of the Palestinians, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali ...
In a recent interview, Lt.-Gen. (retired) Hamid Gul, former chief of Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), argued that it is not in Pakistan's interest to be part of the U.S. efforts for peace talks with the Taliban. "It is good if Pakistan is not involved in the talks with the Taliban because the goals that the U.S. wants to achieve are not in Pakistan's interest. The U.S. wants Indian supremacy in Afghanistan," he added. In the interview, conducted after the May 2, 2011 ...
