(New York Times) | February 18, 2010
By ROGER COHEN
NEW YORK — Here’s what happens when a business linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) is targeted with sanctions. A representative of the Revolutionary Guards finds a lawyer in Dubai and says: “Look, I’m on this stupid U.S. Treasury list. I’ll give you 10 percent. [...]

(WashingtonTV)
Updated: Friday, November 20, 2009
Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf said on Thursday that US President Barack Obama should increase his public support for Iran’s democratic movement, and intensify sanctions on Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
Makhmalbaf, who has become a spokesperson outside of Iran for the main opposition movement, said that the movement supports targeted economic sanctions [...]

[7:00AM Tehran Time]
A lot of additional videos are still being posted to social media sites. The following two are particularly troubling: security forces beating women and innocents:

[5:00PM Tehran Time]
What a day it has been. The boldest protests yet since the rigged election took place on June 12. While thousands of people protesting [...]

Who is damaging the Islamic republic?

This question pits two increasingly irreconcilable camps against each other as the debate continues to heat up in Tehran.

To hard-liners, the answer is clear: it is the reformists, who are accused of plotting a “velvet coup.” To reformists, it is the hard-liners themselves, whose actions undermine the very system they seek to preserve.

From its origin 30 years ago as an ideologically driven militia force serving Islamic revolutionary leaders, the corps has grown to assume an increasingly assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society.

And its aggressive drive to silence dissenting views has led many political analysts to describe the events surrounding the June 12 presidential election as a military coup.

I have been following Iranian news daily now since about 1997, when I would trawl the internet, looking for anything I could find that would help quench a thirst that I  must have been building up since my earliest days.  A thirst for an understanding of the land I was born in, and that I [...]