US Sanctions Pushed Iran to Brink of Bankruptcy
Regime lost billions amid maximum pressure campaign, IMF report reveals Iranian president Hassan Rouhani / Getty Images Adam Kredo • April 14, 2021 5:00 am
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Iran burned through nearly all of its cash reserves in the final years of the Trump administration as harsh economic sanctions crippled the country’s economy and brought the hardline regime to the brink of financial collapse, according to findings published by the International Monetary Fund.
The Islamic Republic had $122.5 billion on hand in 2018 and just $4 billion by 2020, when the former administration’s maximum pressure campaign on Tehran was at its height, according to the IMF’s 2021 Middle East and Central Asia report, which tracks the region’s economies. Iran burned through $118.5 billion in two years, nearly depleting its cash reserves. The country’s coffers are forecast to grow by several billions in the coming years as the Biden administratio
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Iran’s promise of revenge for the Natanz nuclear sabotage incident on Sunday could risk serious escalation, but Tehran will probably seek to avoid casualties, analysts told
The National
after the latest in a string of incidents.
Any lethal response against Israel, which Iran blames for the sabotage, could cause a new crisis, they said.
Iran knows that it can t afford to get itself into an all out conflict with Israel under sanctions
Joe Truzman, FDD
Iran has so far said it will begin enriching uranium to 60 per cent purity in response to the attack, while maritime risk analysts at Dryad Global said an Israeli ship had been attacked in the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday evening.
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“We live in a time,” renowned historian Bernard Lewis wrote in his 2013 memoirs, “where great energies are devoted to the falsification of history to flatter, to deceive or to serve some sectional purpose. No good,” he warned, “can come from such distortions.”
The U.S. Department of State, which is attempting to rewrite history, would be wise to heed the late historian’s warning.
On March 30, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken unveiled the 2020 Human Rights Report, which seeks to provide “objective and comprehensive information to Congress, civil society, academics, activists and people everywhere” about the status of human rights in various countries. Regrettably, in some respects, the report fails by its own standards.
Turkey s Christians Face Increasingly Dangerous Persecution | Opinion Lela Gilbert
, Fellow, Hudson Institute On 4/13/21 at 8:00 AM EDT
Once upon a time, tourists in Turkey eagerly made their way to Hagia Sophia a historic architectural marvel shimmering with the golden light of ancient mosaics. Although marred by many centuries, images of Jesus, Mary and John the Baptist reflect the spirit of a fledgling Christian world. In fact, Turkey s earliest churches are recalled in the New Testament itself in Antioch, where St. Paul began his missionary journeys, and in the Seven Churches portrayed by St. John in his Book of Revelation.
Christianity once flourished in Turkey, until the Ottoman Empire s 1915 genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and other Christians. Now the Islamist regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his neo-Ottoman agenda has magnified Turkey s anti-Christian hostility. Since a failed coup attempt in 2016, the regime intensified its scape
Days after Israel stepped up its warnings about Iran’s nuclear program – amid the Biden administration’s attempts to revive the nuclear deal – Iran on Sunday called a blackout at a key nuclear facility an act of “terrorism” and “sabotage.”