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Archive for the 'Iran' Category

Jul 9th, 2009

Summary: Declassified notes of FBI interviews with Saddam Hussein in 2004 show Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003, but that Saddam falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had WMD because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbor he considered a bigger threat than the U.S.


Jun 25th, 2009

Summary: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused U.S. President Barack Obama of behaving like his White House predecessor George W. Bush and called on him to apologize for what he called U.S. interference following Iran’s elections. In terms of personal qualities, what are the similarities and differences between Barack Obama and George W. Bush? And how, specifically, do they differ from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Link to their psychological profiles, developed at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics.


Jun 19th, 2009

Summary: Residents of Tehran, in open defiance of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, climbed to their roofs and shouted “God is Great!” and “Death to the dictator!” in protest to the June 12, 2009 presidential election they believe was rigged in favor of hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.



Summary: Biographical profiles of candidates and other major players in Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential vote.



Summary: Psychological evaluation of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with personality profile and threat assessment, by Aubrey Immelman of the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics.


Jun 9th, 2009

Summary: There were many domestic reasons voters handed an American-backed coalition a victory over a Hezbollah-led coalition in Lebanese parliamentary elections, but political analysts also attribute it in part to President Barack Obama’s campaign of outreach to the Arab and Muslim world.


Jan 14th, 2009

Summary: Iranian demonstrators, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Death to Obama,” burned photographs of Barack Obama in Tehran as they protested against America’s inaction over Israel’s Gaza offensive. Iranian demonstrators have often burned effigies or pictures of U.S. presidents, but this appeared to be the first time Obama’s picture had been defaced, a week before his inauguration as president.



Summary: President George W. Bush rejected a plea from Israel in 2008 to help it raid Iran’s main nuclear complex, opting instead to authorize a new U.S. covert action aimed at sabotaging Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, according to the New York Times.


Nov 18th, 2008

Summary: Iran praised the Iraqi Cabinet for approving a U.S-Iraq status-of-forces agreement. … Michael Hanna, an analyst at the Century Foundation in New York, said a continuing but finite presence of U.S. troops in Iraq could benefit Iran because it provides “retaliatory options” as Tehran pursues a nuclear program opposed by the West.


Nov 6th, 2008

Summary: U.S. president-elect Barack Obama faces major foreign policy challenges. Summary of intertwined issues Barack Obama inherits from George W. Bush.