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By Nasrin Alavi
Here we go again. As Iran becomes increasingly isolated and under pressure from both Western powers and its Arab neighbours in the region, the battle lines are drawn. For many Iranians the signs are both ominous and all too familiar. On 22 September 1980, Iraq attacked western Iran, launching what would become the longest conventional war of the twentieth century.
By Richard W. Bulliet
On a balmy April day in 1959, I joined with thousands of other students to listen to Fidel Castro speak from the balcony of the field house at Harvard University.
By Rt. Hon. Lord David Waddington, QC
The Iranian Regime’s nuclear ambitions are a threat to world peace. In dealing with this threat and with the Regime’s unbridled meddling in Iraq and the Middle East, the West needs to make a strategic choice.
Iran’s mullahs have managed to remain several moves ahead of us thus far, and last August Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was able to say with conviction: “Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap.”
The chairman of the United States’ Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael G. Mullen acknowledged in April that Tehran was continuing to funnel weapons and other aid to extremists in Iraq for use against Coalition troops. He highlighted in particular the “increasingly lethal and malign influence” exercised by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s extra-territorial Qods Force, which is bent on destabilizing not only Iraq but the rest of the Middle East.
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