Posts tagged : "Barack Obama"

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran-United States relations are on the ropes again after a much-anticipated wrestling competition between the two national sides was abruptly canceled. In late 2021, it was announced that the national wrestling teams of Iran and the US would be facing off for a friendly match in February next year. Many observers of Iran’s politics were overjoyed in the hope the apolitical encounter would build bridges between the two rivals, whose recent engagements cannot be characterized as “friendly.” Iran and the US have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1979, but in defiance of the official narrative of the two governments built on maintaining and prolonging hostilities, punctuated by fleeting...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The Iran nuclear deal, popularly known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, has been widely lauded as a historic understanding that untangled an apparently intractable dilemma spanning over more than a decade, and opened broad new prospects for Iran and the international community to collaborate with no specter of distrust and confrontation around the corner. The global media and Iran pundits are diligently probing the different dimensions of the landmark deal and how it affects Iran’s connections with the outside world. At the same time, the JCPOA signed last summer constitutes an invariable theme in the U.S. presidential candidates’ debates and speeches these days. The Republican nominee...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: While much attention is being paid to the sweeping victories gained by the real estate tycoon Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, there are many observers of the U.S. foreign policy who share a common concern over the fate of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, under President Barack Obama’s successor. An investigative journalist and reporter says the nuclear deal is not a bilateral agreement involving Iran and the United States, and five other nations, including some of the closest U.S. allies in NATO contributed to securing it, so a possible violation of the terms of the deal by the next American President would “pose a major...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: The whole episode began in 2013 when a moderate, pragmatic cleric, popularly known as the “Diplomat Sheikh,” replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the president of Iran. Hassan Rouhani, who spearheaded Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the big three in Europe under President Mohammad Khatami, won the hearts and souls of Iranians thanks to his promise of “constructive engagement” with the international community. President Rouhani was intent on ending more than a decade of political and economic isolation, originating from the international community’s goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—a charge that Iranian officials had denied over and over again. The determination to...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The nuclear deal with Iran has been a resoundingly important theme in the primary debates of U.S. presidential contenders. The most peculiar, unconventional ideas have been broached by the Republican hopefuls such as Senator Ted Cruz who said the JCPOA will hasten Iran’s path to developing nuclear weapons and that he will rip the deal “to shreds” if elected president. Similarly, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is one of the major GOP competitors and equals Ben Carson as the third most popular Republican nominee in the polls analyzed by Real Clear Politics, has opined that the nuclear deal with Iran is not binding for the next U.S. administration and he will undo it, since he considers it to be a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: As the final preparatory step for the implementation of the comprehensive nuclear deal agreed by Iran and the group of six world powers has been taken after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano submitted his report on the past and present outstanding issues regarding the country’s nuclear program to the nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors, political scientists and foreign policy experts are now passionately debating the prospective, much-anticipated thaw in the Iran-U.S. relations. A noted academician and political scientist, who is known in Iran for his research about the 1953 coup d’etat against the nationalist government of Prime Minister Mohammad...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: Following the successful conclusion of the talks over Iran’s nuclear program, and as the negotiating parties gear up for the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), there are still concerns and uncertainties on the commitment of the interlocutors to the terms of the deal. The U.S. presidential election 2016 is approaching, and some candidates have openly vowed that they will scrap the nuclear deal with Iran if elected to the White House, including GOP hopeful and Florida Senator Marco Rubio who has said he will tear the agreement apart on his first day as the U.S. President. Now, having invested a great deal of political capital on obtaining this agreement, it’s inarguably...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: The nuclear agreement between Iran and the six world powers survived a vote of disapproval in the US Senate on Thursday, September 10 after no more than 58 Republicans and Democrats voted to block the enforcement of the deal by the Obama administration – while the adoption of disapproval deal needed a minimum of 60 votes to pass the floor. Secretary of State John Kerry has appointed the former U.S. ambassador to Poland Stephen Mull as the lead coordinator for the implementation of the deal now that the Congress failed to kill off the deal during its 60-day review time. At the moment, President Rouhani administration in Tehran is waiting for the debate on the JCPOA to come to an end in the Majlis so...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: As the high-ranking economic and political delegations from the European and Asian countries flock to Tehran one after the other to negotiate the resumption of their trade ties with Iran following the landmark conclusion of the nuclear talks between Iran and the six world powers earlier on July 14, the United States is the only nation that hasn’t yet taken a final decision on the adoption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and implementing it. The UN Security Council issued the resolution 2231 on July 20, endorsing the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, indicating that after a period of 10 years, Iran’s nuclear program would be treated as a normal and regular case within the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: Will Iran and the group of six world powers be able to reach a final solution on Iran’s nuclear standoff? It will have to wait until June 30, which is the self-imposed deadline for Iran and the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States) to conclude the marathon talks. The negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program get closer to the critical phases, and now the two sides are wrestling over the most miniature details: when and how the sanctions against Iran will be terminated, whether or not the UN Security Council will endorse the removal of the sanctions, and what parts of Iran’s nuclear activities will be stopped or limited. The former U.S. Ambassador to NATO believes...

Kourosh Ziabari - Iran Review: Iran and the six world powers are moving closer to singing a historic deal that will bring a happy and peaceful end to more than one decade of dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Almost all the details regarding the foundation of a comprehensive nuclear accord were agreed upon in the Swiss city of Lausanne on April 2, and the Iranian negotiating team is talking to interlocutors from the United States, three European countries (Britain, France and Germany), Russia and China to work out the text of the comprehensive agreement that is due to be signed on June 30. Although the Congressional hawks in Washington, Israel and some Arab states in the Persian Gulf seem to be nervous about the possibility of a...

Kourosh Ziabari: A renowned American political scientist and author says that there’s ample evidence showing the 2004 presidential election in the United States was fraudulent and stolen by George W. Bush. According to Prof. Robert J. Fitrakis, the Republican Party used all the instruments at its disposal to deceive the American people into believing that George Bush was the real victor, while he was declared the winner of the election thanks to the extensive and widespread cheating and vote-rigging in different US states such as Ohio where numerous irregularities were reported. “In certain black voting precincts, up to 51% of the population had their names removed. When these people showed up at the polls on Election Day their...