Matthias Küntzel - Decembre 21, 2011
While Great Britain severed all connections with the CBI, and similar calls were made by France and others for freezing the CBI accounts in Europe, Berlin has taken a different tack.

Matthias Küntzel - November 22, 2011
A“financial war” against Teheran would be the most humane way of avoiding a nuclear one. 

Román D. Ortiz - The Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington is not an isolated event, but rather a step further in a long term strategic effort to use Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean as a platform to operate in the US.

On October 11, 2011, the United States accused Iran's elite Quds Force of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington with help from members of a Mexican drug cartel. Dr. Sami Alfaraj, the President of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies, discussed this and other developments in a conference call for journalists hosted by Realite EU.

Mark Fitzpatrick
Given that both Iran and North Korea are pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities in defiance of UN mandates, it would seem logical for the two outlaw programmes to share their respective know-how. After all, each is prevented by UN sanctions from legally acquiring the material and technological wherewithal needed to develop nuclear weapons that can be reliably delivered.

By Simon Henderson
So Osama bin Laden has not been hiding in Karachi or somewhere in the mountains of Waziristan; rather, he’s been in Abbottabad. Oh dear. There might be a place more embarrassing for Pakistan but it is hard to think of one. It is yet further evidence that Pakistan, supposedly a key ally of the United States, has gone rogue.
Abbottabad is like West Point, New York. Each is home to a nation's top military academy. Each is close to a major city. In the case of Abbottabad, that is the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. It takes about an hour and half to drive—the same time that West Point's website says it takes to the U.S. military academy from New York City.

Gerlinde Gerber
Following the catastrophe in Fukushima it is time to add a new dimension to the already controversial discussion about the Iranian nuclear program. This should serve as further push for the international community to strengthen its efforts to halt Iranian nuclear development.

Bruno Tertrais
One of the most vexing questions regarding the Iranian nuclear crisis is whether or not Tehran already intends to build weapons or whether it just wants the option to do so in the future. This is vital in determining the diplomatic margin of manoeuvre that the international community has vis-a-vis Iran.

Nazanin Afshin-Jam
In the middle of the unrelenting news coverage of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's provocative visits to Lebanon this week and to the United Nations last month, a highly significant announcement in Washington that signaled a major shift in American policy toward Iran has garnered very little attention.

Matthias Küntzel
At the beginning of September, the US administration issued an unprecedented rebuke to the German authorities by blacklisting the Hamburg-based European-Iranian Trade Bank. Such mistrust of an ally is unusual. The response of Norbert Eisenmenger, a manager of the targeted bank, was even less conventional. I asked him whether he still felt optimistic about the bank’s future. Seemingly unperturbed by the US measure, his reply was, “Of course, why not?” 

Mark Fitzpatrick
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 September 2010
The sanctions adopted by the European Union and most developed countries may yet induce Iran to sincerely enter into negotiations on how to keep its nuclear programme from being used for weapons purposes. But whether or not such talks ensue and are productive, the strict implementation of sanctions can accomplish something else very important: limiting Iran's nuclear weapons potential by denying it the means to expand fissile material production.

Roman D. Ortiz
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s nomination last month of Ahmad Vahidi as defense minister starkly illustrates the danger posed by Iran’s Latin America penetration. Vahidi is wanted by Interpol in connection with the truck bombing of the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires 15 years ago that killed 85 people and wounded more than 300. Argentine investigators accuse Iran of planning and financing this attack and Hezbollah of executing it.

Matthias Küntzel
The international community has treated the recent disclosure of another secret uranium enrichment facility in Iran the way it has treated Tehran's previous violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—with calls for yet more "dialogue." The continued pursuit of fruitless diplomacy at tomorrow's talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany is based on an incorrect understanding of international law, one that was spearheaded by the Europeans and is now unfortunately shared by the U.S. president.

Mehrdad Khonsari
The controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran marks a major turning point in the country’s post-revolution history. For the first time in more than a century, a mass movement is being led not by clerics, but by Iranians with a secular, democratic agenda.

Diana Gregor
'Austria is a small world within the bigger world which challenges it," German dramatist Friedrich Hebbel once said. This quote rings true, especially today. Although it is true that the former empire is in many ways a veritable Garden of Eden - from a political, economic, ecological and cultural point of view it is one of the safest places on earth - a dark stain continues to stretch over Austria's history like an invisible shade.

Peter Zimmerman
Iran has stalled and teased and played the European Union three of Britain, France and Germany as an expert fisherman might handle the big one. For more than 18 years Iran violated its safeguards agreement with the Inter-national Atomic Energy Agency, in effect violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty, by conducting clandestine enrichment research and experiments without declaring them to inspectors.

Claude Moniquet
The question I was asked to answer today is not an easy one: is it any real threat of a wave of terrorist attacks sponsored by Iran, in Europe or in the United States, if a military operation is decided to solve the problem of the Iranian nuclear program? Sadly, I’m afraid the answer to this question is “yes”.

Frédéric Encel
Ethics has its place in geopolitics, contrary to popular belief. Ethics form a fundamental part of politics –otherwise a criminal relativism lies in store. Iran is gaining nuclear power of a specifically military type. This is their openly stated aim, even though Iranian diplomats currently claim the opposite. Iran is currently the third biggest oil-producing country in the world, the second biggest supplier of natural gas and, in addition, it is a country that could very easily install hydroelectric power stations.

Paolo Casaca, MEP
The time for Europe to end our two headed policy on the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, is now.  Iran, in violation of the recent unanimous UN Security Council Chapter 7 Resolution, has not only failed to stop enriching uranium, it has said with defiance that it will continue to enrich at a greater pace.