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GOLDBERG: One of the aspects of this is the question of whether it's plausible that Barack Obama would ever use military power to stop Iran. The Republicans are trying to make this an issue -- and not only the Republicans -- saying that this man, by his disposition, by his character, by his party, by his center-left outlook, is not going to do that.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Look, if people want to say about me that I have a profound preference for peace over war, that every time I order young men and women into a combat theater and then see the consequences on some of them, if they're lucky enough to come back, that this weighs on me -- I make no apologies for that. Because anybody who is sitting in my chair who isn't mindful of the costs of war shouldn't be here, because it's serious business. These aren't video games that we're playing here.Now, having said that, I think it's fair to say that the last three years, I've shown myself pretty clearly willing, when I believe it is in the core national interest of the United States, to direct military actions, even when they entail enormous risks. And obviously, the bin Laden operation is the most dramatic, but al-Qaeda was on its [knees] well before we took out bin Laden because of our activities and my direction.

In Afghanistan, we've made very tough decisions because we felt it was very important, in order for an effective transition out of Afghanistan to take place, for us to be pushing back against the Taliban's momentum.So aside from the usual politics, I don't think this is an argument that has a lot of legs. And by the way, it's not an argument that the American people buy. They may have complaints about high unemployment still, and that the recovery needs to move faster, but you don't hear a lot of them arguing somehow that I hesitate to make decisions as commander in chief when necessary.GOLDBERG: Can you just talk about Syria as a strategic issue? Talk about it as a humanitarian issue, as well. But it would seem to me that one way to weaken and further isolate Iran is to remove or help remove Iran's only Arab ally.PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely.GOLDBERG: And so the question is: What else can this administration be doing?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, look, there's no doubt that Iran is much weaker now than it was a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. The Arab Spring, as bumpy as it has been, represents a strategic defeat for Iran, because what people in the region have seen is that all the impulses towards freedom and self-determination and free speech and freedom of assembly have been constantly violated by Iran. [The Iranian leadership is] no friend of that movement toward human rights and political freedom. But more directly, it is now engulfing Syria, and Syria is basically their only true ally in the region. And it is our estimation that [President Bashar al-Assad's] days are numbered. It's a matter not of if, but when. Now, can we accelerate that? We're working with the world community to try to do that. It is complicated by the fact that Syria is a much bigger, more sophisticated, and more complicated country than Libya, for example -- the opposition is hugely splintered -- that although there's unanimity within the Arab world at this point, internationally, countries like Russia are still blocking potential UN mandates or action. And so what we're trying to do -- and the secretary of state just came back from helping to lead the Friends of Syria group in Tunisia -- is to try to come up with a series of strategies that can provide humanitarian relief. But they can also accelerate a transition to a peaceful and stable and representative Syrian government. If that happens, that will be a profound loss for Iran.

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Obama to Iran and Israel: 'As President of the United ...

WASHINGTON Inside the government, some officials called her Wayward Storm.

Her real name was Monica Elfriede Witt, an exemplary Air Force counterintelligence agent who had studied Persian and carried out covert missions in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

But by mid-2013, Ms. Witt had become disillusioned with the government why, exactly, remains a mystery and had left the military. Thoughts of betrayal consumed her, federal prosecutors now say, until she finally acted on them at the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, where they say she told all.

They are going to get back to me on if they can help me very soon before I leave, Ms. Witt wrote on June 30, 2013, to an Iranian-American reporter working on behalf of the Iranian intelligence services, according to a criminal indictment.

That indictment was made public on Wednesday as the Justice Department accused Ms. Witt, 39, of defecting to Iran in August 2013 to work with Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in betrayal of the United States.

Ms. Witt has been charged with two counts of espionage and other crimes for what prosecutors said was her help to the Iranian government with spearfishing attempts that targeted her former colleagues. Investigators also said she provided the Iranians with secret details about American intelligence operations. She is believed to still be in Iran.

Ms. Witts case is among several in recent years in which prosecutors say a foreign country, particularly China, has tried to recruit former American military or intelligence officials.

The case unsealed today underscores the dangers to our intelligence professionals and the lengths our adversaries will go to identify them, expose them, target them, and, in a few rare cases, ultimately turn them against the nation they swore to protect, John C. Demers, the head of the national security division of the Justice Department, said in a statement.

The authorities did not say whether Ms. Witt caused any damage to American intelligence operations, but any programs she gained access to while in the Air Force would probably have been considered compromised. She also worked closely with the F.B.I. on counterintelligence matters, and she knew the identities of Iranian informants whom the American intelligence agencies were using.

Ms. Witt was born in El Paso. She entered the Air Force in 1997 as part of the Office of Special Investigations, which conducts counterintelligence inquiries in the United States and overseas. She studied Persian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., and went on to focus on collecting the intercepted communications of foreign adversaries.

She left active duty with the Air Force in 2008 but spent another two years working as a contractor. She helped manage the same highly classified program involving informants working against Iran.

A person familiar with her case said she had grown disgruntled while working for the Air Force and at some point had become enamored with Persian culture and converted to Islam. In early 2012, she traveled to Iran to attend a conference called Hollywoodism. Prosecutors said the conference is sponsored by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite Iranian paramilitary force, and is intended to promote anti-American propaganda.

While at the conference, she agreed to appear in at least one video in which she was identified as a veteran and made statements that were critical of the United States. The videos were broadcast by Iranian news outlets.

After her return to the United States, the F.B.I. paid a visit to Ms. Witt, the indictment said, and delivered a warning: Iranian intelligence services were trying to recruit her. She told the F.B.I. agents she would never reveal the work she did for the Air Force.

The Iranians continued to target Ms. Witt, according to the indictment. In June 2012, an American-Iranian journalist, Marzieh Hashemi, came to the United States and hired Ms. Witt to work on an anti-American film.

In 2013, Ms. Witt traveled to Iran again for a Hollywoodism conference and met with members of the Revolutionary Guard and expressed views critical of the United States. She also stated her desire to immigrate to Iran, prosecutors said.

The indictment said she communicated frequently with Ms. Hashemi, who is identified as Individual A. She told Ms. Hashemi the work she had done for the Air Force was evil. She also talked about exposing a secret program and do like Snowden, a reference to Edward J. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who stole sensitive documents and gave them to journalists.

Ms. Witt eventually traveled to Afghanistan to teach English, and while there made contact with the Iranians. But she became frustrated when the Iranians treated her with suspicion. She talked about going to Russia where Mr. Snowden was living.

I think I can slip into Russia quietly if they help me and then I can contact wikileaks from there without disclosing my location, she wrote to Ms. Hashemi.

Apparently the Iranians became alarmed and moved quickly to make sure that did not happen, giving her money to travel to Iran. They are giving me money to head to Dubai, she said in a message to Ms. Hashemi. I will wait to get the approval; there and get it from the embassy in Dubai. They are so kind even taking me to the airport.

Ms. Witt appears to have been in Tajikistan when she wrote the email.

Prosecutors described how Ms. Witt sent Ms. Hashemi an email in August 2013 titled: My Bio and Job History. It included her discharge papers from the military. Ms. Hashemi forwarded them to an email address associated with Iran.

Prosecutors accused Ms. Witt of defecting to Iran that month and working with the Revolutionary Guard to betray her country. The paramilitary group is known to carry out assassinations and cyberattacks around the world and has been penalized by the United States government.

When she arrived in Iran, officials provided her with housing and computer equipment. Prosecutors said that she searched Facebook accounts for Americans and created target packages for Iran against American counterintelligence officials.

In late 2014, prosecutors said, Iranians working on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard began targeting Ms. Witts former colleagues using a fake Yahoo email address and Facebook account. Prosecutors said the Iranians tried to put malware on the computers of the Americans to capture their keystrokes, gain access to web cameras and monitor their activity.

A former senior administration official said that Ms. Witt was also involved in the questioning by Iran of 10 American sailors who were captured in 2016 patrolling in Iranian waters. The sailors were released after about 15 hours.

Former officials said that Ms. Witt maintained a low profile as the criminal case against her moved forward, with a grand jury in Washington recently interviewing at least one witness: Ms. Hashemi, the journalist. Ms. Hashemi was born as Melanie Franklin in Louisiana and moved to Iran more than a decade ago after converting to Islam. She is now a prominent reporter for Irans English-language Press TV.

Ms. Hashemi was arrested in St. Louis while on a trip to the United States to visit relatives and brought to Washington. Officials later disclosed she was a material witness in an unspecified criminal case, the details of which were closely held until Wednesday. She was later released.

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Spy Betrayed U.S. to Work for Iran, Charges Say - The New ...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Saturday it had many options to neutralize the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on its oil exports, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, adding that Tehrans regional influence could not be curbed as demanded by Washington.

FILE PHOTO - Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Iran?s Supreme National Security Council Director, speaks to the media after his arrival at Damascus airport, September 30, 2014. REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri

Apart from closing Strait of Hormuz, we have other options to stop oil flow if threatened, Secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani told Tasnim.

Iran has plans in place that will neutralize the illegal U.S. sanctions against Irans oil exports, Shamkhani said. We have many ways to sell our oil.

Tensions between Iran and the United States increased after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers last May, and then reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The restoration of sanctions is part of a wider effort by Trump to force Iran to further curb its nuclear and missile programs as well as its support for proxy forces in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East.

Washington had been pushing governments to cut imports of Iranian oil to zero. But, fearing a price spike, it granted waivers to eight Iranian oil buyers when the sanctions on oil imports started last November.

Iranian officials have threatened to disrupt oil shipments from the Gulf countries if Washington tries to strangle Tehrans oil exports.

Carrying one-third of the worlds seaborne oil every day, the Strait of Hormuz links Middle East crude producers to key markets in Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and beyond.

There are multiple ways to make that (blockage of Hormuz) happen. We hope we would not be forced to use them, Shamkhani said.

Iran the dominant Shiite Muslim power which is in a rivalry with Saudi Arabia and the United States other Sunni Arab allies has been President Bashar al-Assads most supportive ally against insurgents throughout the nearly eight-year Syrian civil war.

We have achieved 90 percent of Irans goals in Syria, said Shamkhani, a close ally of Irans top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

There will be important developments in promoting deterrence capability of the resistance front in Syria, said Shamkhani when asked about Israels possible future attacks in Syria, according to Tasnim.

Iran often refers to regional countries and forces opposed to Israel and the United States as a resistance axis.

Israel, increasingly concerned that its enemy Iran may establish a long-term military presence in neighboring Syria, says it has carried out over 200 attacks against Iranian targets in Syria in the last two years.

Defying Israeli threats that they might be targeted if they do not leave the country, Iran says it will continue to provide military advisers to Syria for as long as necessary in support of Assads forces.

Iran is capable of confronting any military threat ... Trump and Israel are well aware of Irans military might, Shamkhani said. They know that they cannot enter a war with Iran. That is why they publicly threaten Iran.

Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Toby Chopra

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Iran has various options to neutralize 'illegal' U.S ...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded on Monday evening to a threat issued by an Iranian commander, saying that if Iran attacks Tel Aviv, it "would be the last anniversary of the revolution that they celebrate."

Haaretz Weekly Episode 15Haaretz

Speaking at a rally earlier Monday celebrating the40th anniversaryof the Islamic revolution, asenior Revolutionary Guards commander said that Iranwould demolish entire cities in Israel if the United States attacked the Islamic Republic.

I do not ignore the threats of the Iranian regime but neither am I intimidated by them," Netanyahu said. "If this regime makes the awful mistake of trying to destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa, it will not succeed. However, this would be the last anniversary of the revolution that they celebrate. They should take this into account.

Yadollah Javani, the Guards' deputy head for political affairs was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA that"the United States does not have the courage to shoot a single bullet at us despite all its defensive and military assets. But if they attack us, we willraze Tel Aviv and Haifato the ground,"

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians marched and some burned U.S. and Israeli flags on Monday to mark the 40th anniversary of the triumph of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shi'ite cleric who toppled the Shah in an Islamic Revolution that rattles the West to this day.

>>Burned by Israel strikes, Iran to move weapons supply center out of Damascus

On Feb 11, 1979, Iran's army declared its neutrality, paving the way for the fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the United States' closest ally in the Middle East.

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State TV showed crowds defying cold rainy weather and carrying Iranian flags while shouting "Death to Israel, Death to America," trademark chants of the revolution which ousted the United States' most important ally in the Middle East.

"Much to the dismay of America, the revolution has reached its 40th year," read one banner.

Marchers carried cardboard cutouts of dogs.One had the face of Trump and the other the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

State TV showed a cartoon of the Shah being thrown into the "dustbin of history", wearing clothes in U.S. colors and holding Iranian newspapers headlined "The Shah has left!"

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Netanyahu fires back at Iran: Attack Tel Aviv and 'it'll be ...

Religion

The vast majority of Iranians are Muslims of the Ithn Ashar, or Twelver, Shite branch, which is the official state religion. The Kurds and Turkmen are predominantly Sunni Muslims, but Irans Arabs are both Sunni and Shite. Small communities of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians are also found throughout the country.

The two cornerstones of Iranian Shism are the promise of the return of the divinely inspired 12th imamMuammad al-Mahd al-ujjah, whom Shites believe to be the mahdiand the veneration of his martyred forebears. The absence of the imam contributed indirectly to the development in modern Iran of a strong Shite clergy whose penchant for status, particularly in the 20th century, led to a proliferation of titles and honorifics unique in the Islamic world. The Shite clergy have been the predominant political and social force in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

There is no concept of ordination in Islam. Hence, the role of clergy is played not by a priesthood but by a community of scholars, the ulama (Arabic ulam). To become a member of the Shite ulama, a male Muslim need only attend a traditional Islamic college, or madrasah. The main course of study in such an institution is Islamic jurisprudence (Arabic fiqh), but a student need not complete his madrasah studies to become a faqh, or jurist. In Iran such a low-level clergyman is generally referred to by the generic term mullah (Arabic al-mawl, lord; Persian mull) or khnd or, more recently, rn (Persian: spiritual). To become a mullah, one need merely advance to a level of scholarly competence recognized by other members of the clergy. Mullahs staff the vast majority of local religious posts in Iran.

An aspirant gains the higher status of mujtahida scholar competent to practice independent reasoning in legal judgment (Arabic ijtihd)by first graduating from a recognized madrasah and obtaining the general recognition of his peers and then, most important, by gaining a substantial following among the Shite community. A contender for this status is ordinarily referred to by the honorific hojatoleslm (Arabic ujjat al-Islm, proof of Islam). Few clergymen are eventually recognized as mujtahids, and some are honoured by the term ayatollah (Arabic yat Allh, sign of God). The honorific of grand ayatollah (yat Allh al-um) is conferred only upon those Shite mujtahids whose level of insight and expertise in Islamic canon law has risen to the level of one who is worthy of being a marja-e taqld (Arabic marja al-taqld, model of emulation), the highest level of excellence in Iranian Shism.

There is no real religious hierarchy or infrastructure within Shism, and scholars often hold independent and varied views on political, social, and religious issues. Hence, these honorifics are not awarded but attained by scholars through general consensus and popular appeal. Shites of every level defer to clergymen on the basis of their reputation for learning and judicial acumen, and the trend has become strong in modern Shism for every believer, in order to avoid sin, to follow the teachings of his or her chosen marja-e taqld. This has increased the power of the ulama in Iran, and it has also enhanced their role as mediators to the divine in a way not seen in Sunni Islam or in earlier Shism.

Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians are the most significant religious minorities. Christians are the most numerous group of these, Orthodox Armenians constituting the bulk. The Assyrians are Nestorian, Protestant, and Roman Catholic, as are a few converts from other ethnic groups. The Zoroastrians are largely concentrated in Yazd in central Iran, Kermn in the southeast, and Tehrn.

Religious toleration, one of the characteristics of Iran during the Pahlavi monarchy, came to an end with the Islamic revolution in 1979. While Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians are recognized in the constitution of 1979 as official minorities, the revolutionary atmosphere in Iran was not conducive to equal treatment of non-Muslims. Among these, members of the Bah faitha religion founded in Iranwere the victims of the greatest persecution. The Jewish population, which had been significant before 1979, emigrated in great numbers after the revolution.

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Iran - Religion | Britannica.com