Results for “Iranian clerics”

…lman Rushdie, of being labeled an Orientalist, of upsetting religious sensibilities -- the remarkable hypocrisy of the Iranian regime is often studiously avoided. That's a mistake. Because religion is politics in a theocracy like Iran, uninformed or antiquated notions of sexual...

In the early years of the Iranian Revolution, an obscure cleric named Ayatollah Gilani became a sensation on state television by contemplating bizarre hypotheticals at the intersection of Islamic law and sexuality. One of his most outlandish scenarios -- still mocked by Iranians...

Tunisia and certain other countries have another sense for the Iranian nation.... This is the same as 'Islamic Awakening,' which is the result of the victory of the big revolution of the Iranian nation," said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran also broadcast speeches by Hezbollah's le...

…in 4Q12. However, a weaker USD due to QE3, ongoing social turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa and the risk that Iranian tensions have the potential to heat up after the US presidential elections are likely to keep the oil price at around USD 105-110/bbl in 6 months. In ad...

…hran not to pursue a nuclear weapon, Washington must reassure Khamenei that the United States merely seeks a change in Iranian behavior, not a change of the Iranian regime. What they fail to consider is Khamenei's deep-seated conviction that U.S. designs to overthrow the Islami...

…a cold that day. Before Michael and I flattened our recliner chairs for the big sleep, I told him I felt confident his Iranian film, "A Separation" was winning best foreign picture. He told me "The Artist" would take best picture and director. Actor was a tight race between Bra...

…'t frequent prostitutes and drink alcohol they would appear to be [terrorists] and raise suspicions.” In essence, the Iranian regime's approach toward sex, like its philosophy of governance, is marked by maslahat, or expediency, and used alternately as a tool of suppression, in...

…e shah's time, Tehran's notorious red-light district was known as Shahr-e Noe (New City), a place where countless young Iranian men lost their virginity. Like many things post-revolution, however, the Islamic Republic just imagined that banning the symptom would make the problem...

…n France, reportedly once asserted that women's hair has been scientifically proven to emit sexually enticing rays. (An Iranian satirist responded with a cartoon showing a man inadvertently aroused while eating lunch at his friend's home; the culprit turned out to be an errant st...

…ourism mecca of Pattaya, one arm around a hookah, the other around a hooker. In its ongoing shadow war with Israel, the Iranian side’s lone “success” was the July 18 bombing of a Bulgarian bus carrying Israeli tourists — though European investigators last week officially attribut...

…ian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Since the return of Syria to Sunni control would unravel a key pillar of Iranian deterrent strategy, we can expect that Iran is doing everything possible to undermine the very Syrian opposition forces looking to Ankara for support. T...

….S. leaders could persuade others to go along, which would mean convincing them that U.S. forces could shield them from Iranian and Iranian-proxy retaliation, or at least substantially weaken its effects. Coalition warfare would present a number of challenges to the U.S. governm...

…ses the same danger to international peace and security as do the nuclear arsenals of the regimes of Kim Jong-il or the Iranian clerics.

…s. There is little tradition of private philanthropic funding for NGOs, and even if there were, few wealthy Russians or Iranians would risk reprisal from the authorities by donating to regime critics. Consequently, organizations that lose access to foreign funding typically have...

…ia’s ambassador — by bombing a Washington restaurant? A year on it looks like the new normal. In Bangkok last month, an Iranian agent entered a courtroom in a wheelchair, having accidentally blown his legs off while fleeing police. A January alert issued by Turkish intelligence w...