International Condemnation of Iran Must Be Backed With Action

November 20, 2018 by Ken Blackwell;  Town Hall

The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on November 15, condemning the Iranian regime’s systematic human rights violations. The censure goes next to the UN General Assembly for a vote in December.

The regime’s record of severe abuse stretches back over decades. During Iran’s “summer of blood” in 1988, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini launched a campaign to wipe out the opposition, ordering the execution of leftists and members of the principal opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK). Over a period of just five months, some 30,000 Iranians were slaughtered.

This year’s resolution, the 65th such U.N. censure of Iranian abuse, referenced various accounts and reports of Tehran’s breaches, some produced by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and UN Special Rapporteur Javid Rehman: “The reports of the UN Secretary-General and his Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran indicate that the human rights situation in Iran has worsened since last year and the systematic repression of demonstrators, journalists and users of social networks has increased.”

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Why Russia is slowly abandoning Iran

Aug 22, 2018 by Tom Rogan; The Washington Examiner

Russian President Vladimir Putin is slowly but systemically reducing his support for Iranian interests in Syria.

We gained the newest evidence for this when John Bolton met with Israeli officials on Wednesday. Speaking in Jerusalem, President Trump’s national security adviser claimed that Putin had told Trump “that he would be content to see Iranian forces all sent back to Iran.” Bolton added that Putin had offered the caveat, “I can’t do it myself.”

For once, I think Putin is telling the truth here. The key is that Putin’s interests in Syria are now increasingly divergent from those of Iran.

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House Homeland Security Chairman: In Syria we must punish Assad, Iran, Russia, and destroy ISIS

April 9, 2018; by Chairman McCaul; Fox News

Over the weekend, another suspected chemical attack was carried out in Syria killing dozens of innocent people. Horrifying images of young women and children shaking and suffocating to death while doctors desperately tried to save them were splashed across our television screens.

This attack, along with the recent bombings in Eastern Ghouta that killed an estimated 1,600 civilians since February of this year, are a heart-breaking reminder of the catastrophic human toll that has accumulated over the course of the war in Syria.

What started as a series of violent crackdowns on demonstrations in 2011-- by a diabolical dictator-- quickly ballooned into an all-out civil war. Since this disastrous conflict began, it is estimated that almost 500,000 people have been killed while 5.5 million people fled the country and are living as refugees.

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How Congress Can Help Trump Outmaneuver Iran

April 6 2018; Lincoln Bloomfield Jr.; Foreign Policy

The United States needs a policy that unifies its allies in curbing Tehran.

With the Trump administration’s two top foreign policy positions in transition and a May 12 deadline — which requires that the White House either renew an Iran sanctions waiver or withdraw from the Iran nuclear accord — fast approaching, the United States has urgent need of an approach that addresses the deal’s shortcomings without creating new foreign policy headaches. Congress should remove this artificial deadline and allow the administration to focus on the range of Iranian threats and how best to counter them.

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Where We Can Agree on Iran

January 01, 2018; MARK DUBOWITZ and DANIEL B. SHAPIRO; Politico Magazine

Imagine a free, democratic, independent and wealthy Iran giving full expression to the beauty of Persian culture and the brains and spirit of its people. Imagine a political, clerical and military elite that doesn’t steal its country’s patrimony while brutally repressing its own people and terrorizing its neighbors. We are long-time friends who have disagreed vehemently on the wisdom of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran;

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