Posts

Showing posts from February, 2024

U.S.-Iran Clash: Fire Exchange, Objectives and Outcomes

Image
  By Reza Hoseani Abstract During the first week of September 2026, after a month of relative lull, direct military confrontation between the United States and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) erupted once again. The pattern in this latest round was familiar, but more revealing than before: while simultaneously pursuing indirect negotiations through Oman, the regime was rebuilding its radar systems and strengthening its missile positions, while also preparing to lay mines along new routes in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States responded with a limited strike on Larak Island, and the IRGC retaliated by launching attacks against bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. The second round of U.S. strikes, which extensively targeted radar systems and coastal infrastructure in southern Iran, carried a clear message: Iran would not be allowed to return to its strategy of threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz. 1. Military Reconstruction Under the Cover of Negotiatio...

EU Policy on Iran — a Legacy of Failure

Image
  By Struan Stevenson When Assadollah Assadi, the Iranian ‘diplomat’ jailed for 20 years in Belgium for a terrorist bomb plot, was released in a farcical deal with the Iranian regime and returned to a hero’s welcome in Tehran, many thought the EU’s appeasement policy had reached rock bottom. Warnings were sounded that the release of Assadi would embolden the mullahs to attempt a further bomb attack or assassination attempt on European soil. The warnings were ignored and sure enough, in November 2023, a hitman financed by the Iranian regime attempted to assassinate Alejo Vidal Qudras, a former senior vice president of the European Parliament. Mr Vidal Qudras was shot in the face, in broad daylight, outside his home in Madrid. He miraculously survived. Following Assadi’s arrest for attempting to bomb an Iranian opposition rally in Paris in 2018, Spanish socialist Josep Borrell, the EU’s high Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security said nothing. When Assadi was sentenced to a ...