Rocket Strike In Damascus Hit Iranian Military Experts - Reuters

The decision was in protest over Iran sentencing a German national to death, a statement from the foreign office said.

Germany also summoned Iran's charge d'affaires over the issue, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a statement, adding: "He was informed that we do not accept the massive violation of the rights of a German citizen."

"We call on Iran to revoke Jamshid Sharmahd's death sentence and provide him with a fair appeal process based on the rule of law," she added.

Sharmahd, a German-Iranian national, was sentenced to death on charges of "corruption on earth", the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported on Tuesday.

The verdict can be appealed.

Iran accuses Sharmahd, who also has US residency, of heading a pro-monarchist group accused of a deadly 2008 bombing and planning other attacks in the country.

On Tuesday, Baerbock called the sentencing "absolutely unacceptable". She said Sharmahd had been denied a fair trial and that the ministry had been refused consular access.

Tensions between Iran and the West have intensified in recent months, pushing already-stalled efforts to revive talks on Tehran's nuclear program further into the background.

Germany has been a vocal backer of EU sanctions against Iran over its crackdown on protesters in the country. The bloc plans to widen the measures to include Iranian actors involved in the Russian war in Ukraine.

Report by Reuters

Israel’s Channel 12reported on Tuesday that Netanyahu met five times in recent weeks with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Mossad head David Barnea, Military Intelligence chief Aharon Haliva and other military figures to examine Israel’s readiness for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear targets.

Netanyahu also reiterated his previous calls on Tuesday that the international community must act to stop Iran’s escalation.

“The only thing that has ever stopped rogue nations from developing nuclear weapons is a credible military threat or a credible military action,” he told a national security conference. “A necessary condition and often a sufficient condition is credible military action. The longer you wait, the harder that becomes. We’ve waited very long.”

Successive governments have warned that Israel will not tolerate a nuclear armed Iran and in recent weeks closer military cooperation and diplomatic coordination have been noticeable with the United States.

US officials have been increasingly signaling that President Joe Biden will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, after JCPOA talks hit a dead-end in September. "If they start getting too close, too close for comfort, then of course we will not be prepared to sit idly by," US Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley told National Public Radio in November.

If Tehran has indeed produced a limited quantity of uranium at 84-percent purity, it can signal a possible intentional escalation to put pressure on the West for concessions in nuclear talks. Tehran has been using this tactic since 2019, and specially since 2021 when the Biden administration signaled its readiness to hold talks.

The Times of Israel wrote about Netanyahu’s meetings with military and intelligence officials that “The report, which was not attributed to any source, included few other details about the discussions, and may itself be designed to telegraph the seriousness of Israeli threats to resort to military action in order to shut down Iran’s suspected drive toward a nuclear weapon.”

However, the Channel 12 report said Netanyahu’s meetings resulted in a decision that Israel will act alone if others do not step in. This decision was shared with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

If Israel’s intention is to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic, beleaguered by political and economic crisis, the timing might have been right. This week a serious financial chaos has gripped the country as its battered currency is falling to unprecedented levels against major currencies and panic has gripped the markets about uncontrollable inflation in the weeks to come. This in turn can ignite more popular protests and unrest.

Iran, having missed a chance last August to come to an agreement with the Biden administration over reviving the 2015 JCPOA deal, now finds itself under siege and has to decide to escalate its nuclear confrontation further or make the necessary concessions.

But since the breakdown in the nuclear talks, Washington has been playing hard to get, saying that it is not focused on resuming nuclear negotiations and demanding that Iran should stop military cooperation with Russia and repression at home.

To what extent the new demands are serious pre-conditions, or a negotiating tactic, is not clear, but after the Iranian regime killed hundreds during protests and supplies drones to Russia, it would be politically costly for Biden to simply revive the 2015 nuclear deal and lift sanctions.

In a speech Sunday, Javad Emam, the CEO of Khatami’s Baran Foundation, which he set up after his presidency came to an end in 2005, argued that the dictatorship’s acting against the will of the people, means they “are the ones actually causing regime change”.

Speaking at the Veterans Society Party’s 4th congress, Emam, the party's secretary general, strongly criticized the government’s foreign policy including regional policies which he said “drove Iran's Arab neighbors to Israel’s bosom”.

Addressing party members, which consist mainly of reformist veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, he said the country's foreign policy had also failed to restore the 2015 nuclear deal which has “resulted in the poverty and misery of Iran and Iranians”, and spurred Iran's collaboration with Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Iran has been supplying military drones to Russia since mid-2022, which Moscow has used to target Ukraine’s infrastructure. The United States and European powers have strongly warned Tehran to cease its military cooperation with Russia.

Khatami’s aide warned the government that “in the near future people will no longer listen to them if it does not listen to the voice of people”.

Emam’s sharp criticism comes on the heels of unprecedented popular protests and statements by other key reformist figures who have either called for a referendum to change the regime or serious and fundamental changes in Iran’s politics and economy.

Khatami said in November that regime change, as protesters demanded on the streets, was “neither possible, nor desirable” due to the inequality of the powers of the government and the people. But he also warned the hardliner establishment over continuing the status quo which he said would only deepen the prospects of “societal collapse”. He proposed reforms in the system as the “least costly and most useful” way out of the current quagmire the regime has gotten itself into.

The Green Movement leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was a presidential candidate in 2009 and has been under house arrest since 2011, however, in a statement on February 4, declared that the Islamic Republic was no longer reformable and fundamental change was required to “save Iran”. He proposed elections to appoint a constitutional assembly to write a new constitution and a referendum on the new constitution and its proposed form of government.

A day after Mousavi’s statement, Khatami, who was banned from the media and political activity as well as leaving the country years ago, also issued a statement which many saw as his opposition to Mousavi’s proposal and his insistence on preserving the Islamic Republic at any cost.

In his speech, Emam criticized Mousavi’s views and seemed to be siding with Khatami. He claimed that regime change views are promoted by those who want to cause a rift among reformists and the people.

Khatami and Mousavi both believe in non-violence and are against any foreign interference in Iranians’ affairs, he argued.

He added that before these two leaders’ statements, his own party had in an open letter to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned about the dire situation in the country and stressed the necessity of deep reforms and returning to the full implementation of the Constitution before it was too late.

The scientist said that bomb dropped by the US on Hiroshima in 1945 had uranium with 80% purity.

Naama Charit Yaari told The Jerusalem Post that if the Americans had had time to enrich the uranium to 93% or 94%, the damage would have doubled.

However, she said she doesn’t know for sure if Iran has really enriched to 84% purity or left its supplies at “only” 60% as it has claimed.

UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors detected near bomb grade enriched uranium in Iran last week, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.

Quoting “two senior diplomats” the report said that the IAEA found uranium enriched to 84 percent, while previously Iran was enriching up to 60-percent purity. Enrichment above 90 percent would mean a decision to become a nuclear threshold state.

Bloomberg says that the IAEA needs to determine whether the higher-grade enrichment was intentional or the result of unintended technical processes. Earlier this month, inspectors had found an unusual set-up in interconnections of enrichment machines, called centrifuges.

The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran rejected Bloomberg's report as "distortion of facts" and said, "We have not enriched uranium to purity levels above 60 percent so far." He added that the IAEA has informed Tehran that "the presence of uranium particles with above 60-percent purity is common in sampling."

Ahmad Ali Goudarzi said the vessel was carrying more than 5,000 machetes and swords made in the United States, claiming that when more blood touches the blades, the sharper they get.

He did produce any photos, evidence or provide other details about the alleged vessel or if any crew were arrested.

Stating that Iran also seized electronic cigarettes and various harmful systems made in the United States, Goudarzi added that over 3,000 other weapons were also discovered that were supposed to be given to the “rioters” in Iran.

Hardliners led by the IRGC call Iranian protesters “rioters” and “thugs”. Iran has been the scene of anti-government protests since September when the 22-year-old Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini was killed in police custody.

The claims by Goudarzi come after the US military announced earlier this month that the US Navy assisted the French military in seizing thousands of assault rifles and half a million rounds of ammunition that were being transferred from Iran to Yemen in January.

US Central Command confirmed over 3,000 assault rifles, 578,000 rounds of ammunition, and 23 anti-tank guided missiles were confiscated.

It also added that the seizure is “one of four significant illicit cargo interdictions over the past two months,” which has prevented the transfer of more than 5,000 weapons and 1.6 million rounds of ammo to Yemen. Another seizure of arms was announced earlier in January.