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In the minds of many Iranians, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Irans new speaker of parliament, is identified less with his political and military credentials than with corruption. A 58-year-old trained pilot from Irans northeastern province of Khorasan, Qalibaf has an arguably unrivaled track record of illicit public self-dealing. His tenures as mayor of Tehran, national police chief, and head of the national anti-trafficking headquarters were marked by some of the most high-profile corruption and embezzlement cases in the nations post-revolutionary history.One instance involved Qalibaf as mayor granting several close associates more than $500 million worth of estates and buildings in Tehrans affluent north at cut-rate prices. An investigation motion was tabled in the parliament but ultimately shelved after 132 lawmakers voted against it under intense lobbying pressure.

Even by the warped meritocracy standards of the Islamic Republic, Qalibafs ascent to the top of Irans legislature, given the risk it poses to the governments legitimacy, seems to require an explanation. It becomes more understandable when one realizes that Qalibafs politically calculated and ultimately state-serving corruption wasnt a hurdle to his rapid promotion but part of the very reason for it. Amid the Trump administrations maximum pressure campaign against Iran, the Iranian establishment has found the virtue of having its own crook in power.

Whatever his faults, nobody has ever doubted Qalibafs loyalty to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Like many other top Iranian power holders today, Qalibaf earned his early political credentials in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, when he served as commander of Imam Reza-21 Brigade and 5th Nasr Division, two military units consisting mostly of combatants from his home provincewhich happens to be where current supreme leader Ali Khamenei hails from. After the war, with Khameneis backing, Qalibaf was appointed deputy chief of the Basij (mobilization) militia force before being promoted to chief of IRGCs Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters in 1994 and commander of the IRGC air force in 1997.

Qalibaf has now been embraced by the Iranian leadership in the hope that he will play a central role in the creation of a more harmonious and homogeneous political system dominated by hard-line insiders and loyalists.Given the increasing strangulation of the Iranian economyon June 13, Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri admitted that Irans total oil revenue plummeted to $8 billion in 2019 from an average of $100 billion a yearand the likelihood of another four years of crippling sanctions or even war if U.S. President Donald Trump is reelected in November, Tehran seems to believe that it can weather the storm safely only if it acts in concert and harmony. And that means an incremental takeover of the government and the economy by hard-liners loyal to the countrys top military and clerical leadership. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh declared on June 9, in a ceremony featuring senior officials from the Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade, that the IRGC would be entering into the auto industrya reportedly $15 billion market traditionally controlled by moderates and their pragmatic conservative allies in Irans business community.

With the judiciary led by Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi, known for his direct role in the 1988 mass executions of political prisonersand the legislature now in hard-liner hands, the next goal will be to control the executive branch. Qalibaf will probably face his first major political test in the 2021 presidential vote as he will likely be expected to help facilitate the election of a like-minded politician. In his first address as Majlis speaker, he accused the moderate administration of President Hassan Rouhani, his rival in the 2017 presidential elections, of managerial disarray and inefficacy and railed against its outward look. Hossein Allahkaram, a famed hard-line rabble-rouser, even went as far in a June 7 interview as to encourage efforts to deny anyone from the reformist camp the right to run for president in 2021.

In contrast to his predecessor, Ali Larijani, whose measured support for Rouhanis foreign policy of engagement with the West had proven pivotal in sustaining the 2015 nuclear deal, Qalibaf has described negotiations with the United States as pointless and pernicious, insisting instead on completing the chain of revenge for martyr [Qassem] Soleimanis blood and augmenting the power of axis of resistance. In a clear sign of shifting attitudes toward foreign and security policy matters, he appointed Mahdi Mohammadi, a hard-line member of Irans former nuclear negotiation team under Saeed Jalilisecretary of the Supreme National Security Council from 2007 to 2013 and currently Khameneis representative on itas his advisor on strategic affairs. A few days earlier on June 1, Jalili, who has set his sights on the 2021 presidential elections, urged the new parliament in a letter to Qalibaf to monitor the state affairs like a shadow and thus act as a shadow administration in confirming, completing and correcting policies of the executive branch.

Meanwhile, the widely publicized large-scale corruption trial of Akbar Tabariexecutive deputy to former Chief Justice Ayatollah Sadeq Larijanialong with vehement calls for Larijanis own prosecution by hard-line ideologues close to the Revolutionary Guard suggest a likely fall from grace for the powerful Larijani family, who were, until recently, in control of both the judiciary and the legislature. These calls, coupled with growing ties between Qalibaf and Jalili, could be symptomatic of efforts behind the scenes to undermine former Majlis Speaker Ali Larijanis chances of success if he decides to run for president in 2021.

A more conformist, centralized, and streamlined system of decision-making is also deemed necessary to guarantee a smooth leadership succession and transition of power to the next supreme leader upon Khameneis death. At the moment, Chief Justice Raisi stands as the prime candidate, having so far successfully marginalized his former boss and rival, Sadeq Larijani. If Raisi ultimately wins the leadership succession contest, Iran will be led by a member of the death commission tasked by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to carry out the mass execution of political inmates in 1988.

The state-led exclusionary homogenization is, however, not limited to politics and political decision-making. Backed by hard-liners in power, it is swiftly extended to social and media spheres, too. On June 21, Iranian security forces stormed the offices of the Imam Ali Popular Students Relief Society and arrested its directors. A widely popular nongovernmental charity with more than 10,000 members, the society was established in 1999 and has since earned a good reputation, especially over the past few years, for its effective poverty and disaster relief initiativesin sharp contrast to the often-corrupt and inefficient interventions of the government, including the Revolutionary Guard. Unsurprisingly, Tasnim News Agency, which is close to the IRGC, has accused the society and its founders of network-building in the guise of charitable measures to infiltrate and influence public opinion on various levels. It is also notable that the roundup came shortly after Gen. Hossein Nejat, a well-connected hard-line IRGC veteran, was appointed as deputy commander of Sarallah Corps, which is tasked with security in Tehran and protection of state bodies based in the capital. A former commander of Vali-e Amr (Supreme Leader) Corpsin charge of Khamenei and his households securityNejat excoriated the West after the November 2019 protests for striving to subvert the Islamic Republic by provoking the poor and low classes of the society, whom, he stressed, have been contaminated in the virtual sphere. Quite relevantly, the new parliament is now systematically pushing for greater state control over the unfettered online environment and the filtering of Instagram in particular, with Qalibaf himself warning of families exposure to a contaminated space.

But the incremental hard-liner takeover is generating both popular discontentwhich a more uniform system of governance would be better positioned to tackleand, far less commonly, increased dissatisfaction among sidelined insiders within the establishment. Nowhere can this be seen more ostensibly today than in the high ranks of Irans regular army (Artesh), a professional military force that has traditionally been treated as a junior partner to the Revolutionary Guard. In a rare interview, deleted an hour after its publication May 24, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, a highly venerable veteran of the Iran-Iraq War and coordinating deputy chief of the army, implicitly criticized the Guards interventions in economy and politics, as well as attempts, mostly by IRGC-affiliated politicians and filmmakers, to portray the regular army as an unreliable and spineless force still beholden to the pre-revolutionary Pahlavi government.

Is the army some sort of fridge, construction, or camera factory whose every move should be publicized in the media? Sayyari pointedly asked, suggesting that such achievements are a matter of national security and should not be hyped up. His obvious dissatisfaction with lack of kindness to the armyparticularly apparent in pro-IRGC narratives of the Iran-Iraq Warand the need for armed forces to steer clear of politicization and public spectacle echoed clear warnings by members of Irans Ministry of Intelligence about the security consequences of the celebrity status built around slain Quds Force commander Soleimani.

High-level objections to state discrimination against Artesh are not unprecedented, however. In June 2000, then-commander-in-chief of the army Gen. Ali Shahbazi resigned reportedly in protest against the top leaderships unfair favoring of the IRGC air force during a legal dispute with the army over possession of a military base in the southern city of Shiraz that originally belonged to the latter. Interestingly, Qalibaf was chief commander of the Guards air force at the time.

Qalibafs rise to power is part of a grander scheme to ensure the long-term survival of the Islamic Republic as is at its most precarious juncture, marked on the one hand by a methodology of governance whose unsustainability has never been laid bare more clearly and on the other by foreign threats whose gravity have rarely been more formidable since the 1979 revolution.

This does not mean, however, that the Islamic Republic is anywhere near collapse, as Iran hawks inside and outside of the Trump administration seem to hope. As the Iranian nuclear dossier gradually returns to the international security agenda, thanks to Trumps maximum pressure campaign and Irans retaliatory nuclear escalation, the incremental hard-liner takeover in Tehran just means that the Islamic Republic will do whatever it takes to stay in power, and this does not bode well for the future of democracy and prosperity in Iran, nor for the prospects of peace and stability in the Middle East.

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Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf Is Speaker of Iran's Parliament Because He's a Crook - Foreign Policy

Struan Stevenson: The Truth is Out About Irans Economic Meltdown

On June 29, Mr. Struan Stevenson, the coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change and a former Member of the European Parliament, wrote an article on the United Press International (UPI) website.

In this article, Mr. Stevenson examines the dire economic situation of the Iranian regime and addresses the crises facing the regime. He touches on the crisis of widespread poverty of tens of millions of Iranians and the increase of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran and the crisis of devaluation of the national currency. But in this situation, the regime continues to waste the nations resources on expensive missile tests while the Iranian society is in an explosive condition.

The full text on this article is below:

June 29 (UPI) The Iranian economy has collapsed. The ayatollahs can no longer afford to pay the wages of government employees, as the triple whammy of U.S. sanctions, the coronavirus pandemic and rampant corruption reduce their budget to chicken feed.

As international vultures hover over the clerical regimes rotting corpse, the mullahs have ramped up their provocative testing of ballistic missiles and illegal nuclear activities in a costly, last-ditch bid to cling to power. They can ill afford to divert their dwindling resources to militaristic posturing, while 70 percent of the Iranian population is starving, trying to survive on less than the recognized international poverty line of $1.90 per day.

The Iranian currency the rial fell a further 14 percent in June to its lowest level ever. In a country that boasts the worlds second-largest gas reserves and fourth-largest crude oil reserves, the Iranian regimes economic disintegration has become a byword for incompetence, avarice and greed.

Iran, despite its rich, civilized and open culture, has become an international pariah, its religious fascist regime condemned for human rights abuse and the export of terror, while its 80 million impoverished citizens, over half of whom are under 30, struggle to feed their families against a background of COVID-19 raging across the nation. The mullahs tell the world that only around 10,400 people have died from the disease, but the true figures are believed to be in excess of 62,000, as the contagion spirals out of control.

Supplies of drugs, personal protective equipment and ventilators have been sent to hospitals for the elite or sold on the black market by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regimes Gestapo. Meanwhile, President Hassan Rouhani has ordered the population back to work in an attempt to reboot the economy, resulting in a second, deadly wave of coronavirus contagion.

The Iranian people have long known that the regime is more toxic than the virus. The mullahs are now terrified that their theocratic system will come tumbling down, as the destitute masses rise up in fury and cast them into the garbage can of history. They have redoubled their repression and tyranny in an effort to prevent a new revolution, arresting, torturing, flogging and hanging young political protesters who are routinely accused of supporting the Mojahedin e-Khalq democratic opposition movement. Eight death sentences for corruption on earth have been approved for young protesters who were arrested following the November uprising.

Meanwhile, there is smoldering fury that the ayatollahs have spent $30 billion propping up Bashar al-Assads murderous Syrian regime and squandered looted resources on their extremist proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza. But, starved of resources, the theocratic regimes international adventurism is grinding to a halt. There are signs of military withdrawal in Syria and even Irans strategic allies in Iraq and North Korea say that U.S. banking sanctions have made it impossible to circumvent President Donald Trumps maximum pressure campaign, to provide a lifeline to the ruling dictatorship.

Now the truth about Irans economic meltdown is out. Rouhani has acknowledged that international economic pressure has cost his government over $200 billion in lost revenues. At a session of the Iranian Majilis (parliament) in early June, Abdolnasser Hemmati, the head of the Central Bank of Iran, acknowledged that the countrys banking system had been seriously disrupted.

Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, head of the Planning and Budget Organization, told the Majilis that it had become almost impossible for Iran to sell crude oil, the countrys main source of income. Nobakht went on to say that the government could no longer rely on oil revenues, but warned that raising taxes was not an option due to the recession.

In such circumstances, governing the country is very difficult, he told MPs. He continued by telling the Majilis that providing at least $2.47 billion of the 2020-21 budget bill is impossible. He said the government needs around $1.76 billion just to pay its employees and to continue operating. He admitted that the money is not available.

Nobakhts statement caused an outcry in the parliament. The newly elected hard-line MP from the city of Mashhad Javad Karimi Qoddussi claimed that Rouhani had personally authorized the then-governor of the Central Bank of Iran Valiollah Seif to give $36.1 billion and 80 tons of gold to three gangs involved in the smuggling of goods, foreign exchange and drugs in the Iraqi Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, while it was under the control, according to Qoddussi, of the Americans and Saudis.

Qoddussi is a sycophantic devotee of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a close ally of the newly appointed speaker Brig. Gen. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who is intent on implementing the supreme leaders master plan to sweep aside Rouhanis government and to replace it, in Khameneis own words, with a Young Hizbollahi government.

Accusing Rouhani of corruption will be seen as a great irony by the Iraqi population, who know that the supreme leader and the speaker are among the most venally corrupt people in Iran. But the parliamentary outburst by Qoddussi has provided a strong signal of the infighting that has splintered the clerical regime.

Qoddussi went on to blame Rouhani for the nationwide uprisings that exploded across the country in December 2017 and again in November 2019, when the IRGC gunned down thousands of unarmed protesters. Mocking Rouhanis attempts to have appeared as the hero who had crushed the protests, Qoddussi claimed that Rouhanis tactics had backfired, provoking even greater anti-government unrest.

Qoddussi said, We witnessed two instances of [Rouhanis] heroism in inciting the people during the events in 2017 and in 2019 and the people who were killed then, and in the fall of the national currency value. Rouhanis term of office does not end until 2021 and Khameneis desperate effort to get rid of him before then is perhaps the strongest indication yet that the mullahs no longer believe they can survive for another year.

Struan Stevenson is the coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change. He was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliaments Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an international lecturer on the Middle East and is also president of the European Iraqi Freedom Association.

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Struan Stevenson: The Truth is Out About Iran's Economic Meltdown - NCRI - National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

Female human rights activists imprisoned in Iran are facing a slew of new charges to prevent them from being temporarily released because of the Covid-19 epidemic, rights groups say.

Since Covid-19 spread rapidly through the country in early March, Iranian authorities have been under pressure to release all prisoners who pose no risk to society. Around 85,000 prisoners were temporarily released under a furlough scheme earlier this year in response to the coronavirus outbreak, half of whom were believed to be political detainees.

Yet dozens of womens rights activists remain in prisons across the country, with groups including the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) accusing authorities of deliberately rendering them ineligible for release by bringing new charges. Those considered security prisoners with sentences of more than five years were automatically denied furlough.

Narges Mohammadi, one of Irans best-known womens rights defenders, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 after she campaigned to abolish the death penalty. Mohammadis family and the GCHR say that she has been denied furlough and charged with dancing in prison during the days of mourning to commemorate the murder of the Shia Imam Hussein a charge the family dismissed as absurd.

It is feared that Mohammadi could face another five years in prison and 74 lashes as a result of the new charges, which include collusion against the regime, propaganda against the regime and the crime of insult.

Atena Daemi, 32, a womens rights activist and anti-death penalty campaigner, was expected to be furloughed on 4 July, but is facing additional charges that make her ineligible for the scheme.

Already serving a sentence for disseminating anti-death penalty leaflets, she now faces a further 25 months in prison for writing a letter criticising the execution of political prisoners. Her family say that she is also facing additional charges for disturbing order at Evin prison by chanting anti-government slogans, a claim she denies.

Saba Kord Afshari, 22, who was jailed for nine years in 2019 for not wearing a headscarf, has had her sentence increased to 24 years.

Its no surprise that intelligence agents and judicial officials in Iran are zealously working to put womens rights activists behind bars and keep them there for as long as possible, said Jasmin Ramsey of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. Women are on the frontlines of struggles for rights and equality in Iran, as shown by the multiple political prisoners who continue to speak out for the rights of others from inside jail cells.

By going so far as to alter the judicial process with the hopes of muzzling these prisoners under lengthy jail sentences, Iranian judicial and intelligence officials are revealing how desperate they are to prevent women from taking on more leadership roles.

Nassim Papayianni, Amnesty Internationals Iran campaigner, said that adding fresh charges is commonly used to silence detainees, particularly when they have campaigned from behind bars.

Increasing numbers of female activists have been arrested in recent years and given lengthy sentences for criticising or challenging state policies by advocating human and civil rights.

US-based journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, who started the White Wednesdays campaign against mandatory veiling, said the increasing number of charges levelled against female activists like Afshari proved how desperate the Iranian state had become.

For years and years, we had the fear inside us. And now women are fearless. They want to be warriors and that scares the government, she said.

In the Islamic Republic, we dont have freedom of expression, we dont have free parties or free media or free choice. They can shut down NGOs and political parties and newspapers but they cant go after every person who becomes an activist or a movement themselves, who become their own saviours instead of waiting for someone to save them.

Originally posted here:
Iranian authorities move to block release of female rights activists - The Guardian

More sanctions are needed to stop Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of a meeting with U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook on Tuesday.

Netanyahu added that Iran has been deliberately misleading the international community in regards to its nuclear ambitions.

U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

(Photo: GPO)

"The international community largely stood idle in the face of Iranian deceit and aggression", the PM asserted, saying that a number of nations even colluded with Tehran.

He praised the U.S. for its "maximum pressure" policy on Iran, saying that while Tehran tried to intimidate Washington, the White House's resolve left its efforts barren.

He also commended the United States for the January drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and warned that Israel will do everything necessary to make sure that Iran does not expand its foothold in Syria.

Netanyahu also referred to remarks Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday that whatever isnt connected to fighting coronavirus will wait until after the virus, period.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei

(Photo: EPA)

We have very important topics to discuss, even ones that cant wait until after coronavirus, Netanyahu said.

Hook, whose visit to Israel was part of a wider Middle East diplomatic tour, said that Israel and the U.S. "see eye to eye" on the need to extend the UN conventional arms embargo, warning that its expiration would allow it to export more arms to its regional proxies.

Hook also warned that Iran was the world's largest sponsor of anti-Semitism and terrorism, not just in the Middle East, but all across the globe.

On Monday, Hook visited Saudi Arabia, where Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir joined the U.S. call for extending the international embargo against the Islamic Republic.

Bahrain also backed the U.S. initiative during Hook's visit to the country.

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More sanctions against Iran needed to stop nuclear ambitions, PM says - Ynetnews

With mail processing delays around the world and the United States Postal Service (USPS) teetering on the brink of collapse as a result of the financial losses caused by the pandemic, as reported by Politico, many people are coming to realise just how crucial a role the mail plays in their daily lives.

Far fewer, however, may be aware of how the modern postal service came to be, and the ancient Persian institution that served as the model and inspiration for the USPS and other such delivery services.

Although civilisations like those of Egypt and China are said to have been amongst the first to use postal services, and the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires in modern-day Iraq were using forms of mail delivery before the Persian Empire was founded in the 6th Century BC, the Persians of Iran took the idea of a postal system to previously unseen heights and then some. They used an extensive network of roads worked by expert horsemen who covered stupefying distances throughout the massive, diverse empire with bewildering speed and unwavering resolve.

The Achaemenid Persians (approx. 550-330 BCE) were able to deliver, through the use of a system of couriers on horseback (known as pirradazi in Old Persian), messages from one end of the massive Persian Empire to the other in a matter of days. According to scholars, a message could be sent from Susa, the administrative capital of the empire in western Iran, to Sardis, in what is now western Turkey, in between seven and nine days, following the Royal Road, a sort of highway connecting the two cities. In the Histories, the Greek historian Herodotus who estimated that the approximately 2,600km distance would take three months on foot marks Susa and Sardis as the extremities of the Royal Road, but the Persian postal system was far vaster.

Herodotus description is fragmentary The Royal Road from Sardis to Susa is just one royal road among many others, writes Dr Pierre Briant in From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire.

At its peak under the reign of Darius the Great, the Persian Empire stretched from Greece to India. Briant notes in his book how tablets from Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the empire, show that messages were sent to and from India and Egypt, also pointing out that the historian Ctesias mentioned the Greek city of Ephesus, too, in his writings.

The entire imperial territory, Briant writes, was covered.

Never before had messages been delivered on such a massive scale. The ancient Persian postal system was powered by horses that operated on a relay system, making journeys speedy and efficient. But the Persians would not have been able to cover the daunting distances they did in so little time had they not been expert horsemen. The ancient Iranians (of whom the Persians were just one of numerous peoples) were redoubtable when it came to horsemanship. The postal system aside, the Iranians inspired the use of cavalry amongst the Athenian Greeks, for example, and also devised the game of polo.

Historically, the Persian Royal Road was the first major land structure conceived to thoroughly exploit horse transportation and relay, writes Dr Luc-Normand Tellier in Urban World History: An Economic and Geographical Perspective.

According to Dr Lindsay Allen, a lecturer in ancient history at Kings College London, the Persian postal system was also impressive for its use of a standardised language across such a vast expanse, as well as its consistency in terms of message delivery and format. Although Old Persian was the Persians native tongue, the linguistically unrelated Aramaic was the administrative language of the empire and thus used in composing messages throughout it, much in the same way that English and Latin-alphabet transliterations are usually used on envelopes and parcels worldwide today.

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For long distances were looking at Aramaic on ink on prepared animal skin, folded up and sealed, Allen said. This was the first time that consistently formatted letters, folded and sealed, were used. Unfortunately, we have only a few surviving parchment letters written in Aramaic [but] even these suggest there was shared administrative practice between letters sent to Egypt and those sent by a local governor in Bactria.

While the Royal Road was an incredibly efficient and effective way of delivering messages, it was only used for administrative purposes and not by private individuals. The Persian emperors used the Royal Road and other such routes for issuing decrees and for their armies, tribute-bearers, and troops of government workers, according to Briant.

It was also used by the emperor to keep abreast of all the goings-on in the empire. In the Cyropaedia, a book in praise of Cyrus the Great that is still read as a classic guide to effective leadership, Xenophon attributes the establishment of the Persian postal system to Cyrus and describes his use of it in gathering intelligence: The king will listen to any man who asserts that he has heard or seen anything that needs attention, he writes. Hence the saying that the king has 1,000 eyes and 1,000 ears; and hence the fear of uttering anything against his interest since he is sure to hear, or doing anything that might injure him since he may be there to see.

This was the first time that consistently formatted letters, folded and sealed, were used

According to Xenophon, Cyrus first found out how far a horse could travel when ridden hard before breaking down, and then used this distance to set up stations at intervals throughout the empire. The couriers travelled from dusk till dawn, and Xenophon who was once hired by the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger as a mercenary and had to flee back to Greece from Iran with his army when the formers coup detat went awry considered the Persian postal system to undeniably be the fastest overland travelling on Earth.

Herodotus also mentions the relay system in the Histories. The first rider delivers his charge to the second, the second to the third, and thence it passes on from hand to hand, he explained; and his description of the Persian couriers gives added credibility to that of Xenophon, who wasnt always the most historically accurate: There is nothing mortal that accomplishes a course more swiftly than do these messengers, by the Persians skillful contrivance [They] are stopped neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

This is the most famous description of the Persian couriers and the ancient Persian postal system. In a slightly amended form that reads, Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, it now serves as the unofficial motto of the USPS. It can also be seen engraved on the facade of the USPS stately James Farley Post Office in New York City. In popular American culture, the phrase is associated with the dedication of the USPS worker to the extent that the mailman Cliff Clavin in the popular 1980s television series Cheers quoted it with pride to his drinking buddies.

On that note, so famous is Herodotus account of the Royal Road that the term has been used throughout history to refer to denote an effortless path. There is no royal road to science, wrote Karl Marx in the preface to the French translation of his book Das Kapital, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.

After the fall of the Sassanian Persian Empire in the 7th Century AD, the Persian relay system of message delivery continued to be used if not wholly, then at least partly, according to the Encyclopaedia Iranica by invaders like the Arabs and Mongols, as well as the indigenous dynasties that followed like the Safavids, Zands and Qajars.

However, the Achaemenid (and Sassanian) glory days of the pirradazi by then referred to by the Turkish term chapar were long gone. In her 1890s travelogue Persian Pictures, for instance, Gertrude Bell wrote about how she and her companions found themselves lying in a little alcove under the archway of a tiny tumble-down post-house, vainly demanding fresh horses.

Nevertheless, the myriad chapar khanehs (post offices) that dotted Iran at the time, no matter how decrepit they could often be, were invaluable to travellers like Bell as they also served as little inns between major cities. Kinarigird is the last stage from the capital of the Medes and Persians, wrote T S Anderson in his late-19th Century travelogue My Wanderings in Persia, and it was with no small amount of satisfaction that I entered the chapar khaneh [I] was soon enjoying (in slippers and loose jacket) the beauties of an Eastern moonlight, as also of a good dinner on the roof.

Chapar khanehs are no longer used in Iran today, but they can still be seen throughout the country. In Meybod in central Iran, for instance, a Qajar-era (1785-1925 AD) chapar khaneh serves as a Post and Communications Museum (featuring wax figures of Qajar postmen) and tourist destination. And, although in ruins, an earlier one from the Zand period (1751-1794 AD) can be seen in the nearby village of Sar-Yazd. Elsewhere, travellers can visit the remains of a Safavid-era (1501-1736 AD) post office in Zafaranieh near the north-eastern city of Sabzevar.

The Royal Road and the Persian postal system may very well be things of the past, but the ingenuity of the Achaemenid Persians and the perseverance of their couriers continue to influence and inspire well beyond the borders of ancient Iran, and even the mighty Persian Empire.

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The surprising origins of the postal service - BBC News