Iran and Middle East analyst. Columbia graduate school alumni in politics and international affairs.

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Mardo Soghom retweeted
Memo to the Trump administration: Stop buying companies. A government $40 trillion in debt should be SELLING assets, not buying ownership stakes in 36 companies. We thought government control of the means of production was what we were fighting against.
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
جاویدنام روبینا امینیان، دانشجوی ممتاز رشتهٔ طراحی و دوخت لباس، دختر کُردی که عاشق خاندان پهلوی بود؛ حتی گوشواره‌هایش هم عکس شاهنشاه آریامهر را داشت. 💔🖤 #جاويدشاه_رمز_نجات_ایران
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
I'm puzzled by Marco Rubio's role as Secretary of State. Why are Witkoff and Kushner taking the lead on major negotiations over war and peace, rather than America's chief diplomat?
.@McFaul and @Timodc rip into Marco Rubio for abandoning his support for Ukraine while the Trump administration attacks Zelensky: "They could be leaning in to try to fix it and not attacking the guy in the country that they’re supposedly trying to help."
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
What the politicians in the U.S. & Europe DO NOT understand is that millions inside Iran not only hate the mullah regime, but many of them have totally rejected the regime's Shiite Islam altogether! When this regime is gone, Iran will likely not be a Muslim majority nation.
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
Just dropped: America’s primary and secondary schools have become targets of foreign influence campaigns. Qatar Foundation International (QFI), an organization with ties to Qatar’s royal family, has spent more than $10 million on K-12 public school programming in nearly two dozen major districts, mainly to support Arabic language and culture instruction. In federal filings, Qatari authorities insist QFI is exclusively a grant-making organization that “has no role in setting or influencing classroom content or management.” Nevertheless, QFI’s grants are used by recipients to pay for teaching material whose Arabic programsinclude maps that falsely label Israel as “Palestine.” fdd.org/analysis/foreign-fun…
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
Watch @JimHansonDC destroy @tparsi on Piers Morgan. قهوه‌ای کردن تریتا پارسی توسط جیم هنسن.
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If you want to present "American" as a fraudster, a liar, a cheater, a weasel, a thief, an asshole & a piece of shit, yes, she is the right kind of American. What has she added to America other than more hate, nothingness, and being unappreciative? Diversity is a sham.
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در ادامه پست قبلی، یک نکته مهم را نباید فراموش کرد: هنوز معلوم نیست ترامپ در نهایت با جمهوری اسلامی چه خواهد کرد، اما تضعیف حزب جمهوری‌خواه و قدرت گرفتن دموکرات‌ها در کنگره می‌تواند پیامدهای مهمی برای سیاست آمریکا در قبال ایران داشته باشد. به باور من، بخش قابل توجهی از سیاستمداران دموکرات در سال‌های گذشته در برابر جمهوری اسلامی بیش از حد مماشات کرده‌اند. آنها اغلب به امید دستیابی به توافق دیپلماتیک، خطرات ناشی از سیاست‌های حکومت تهران را دست‌کم گرفته‌اند. از سوی دیگر، فشار اقتصادی و نظامی دولت ترامپ بر جمهوری اسلامی واقعیتی است که نمی‌توان نادیده گرفت، حتی اگر درباره تصمیم‌های متناقض و امتیازدهی‌های او انتقادهای جدی داشته باشیم. نگرانی من این است که تغییر موازنه قدرت در واشنگتن، به‌ویژه اگر به کاهش فشار بر جمهوری اسلامی منجر شود، فرصت بیشتری برای بازسازی توان اقتصادی و امنیتی حکومت تهران فراهم کند. در نتیجه ایرانیان آمریکا باید سعی کنند به جمهوری خواه هان رای دهند. مسئله اساسی برای من نام ترامپ یا وفاداری به یک حزب آمریکایی نیست؛ این است که سیاست واشنگتن به تقویت جمهوری اسلامی منجر نشود و منافع مردم ایران در معاملات سیاسی نادیده گرفته نشود.
همه نظرسنجی‌های مهم پیش از انتخابات کنگره آمریکا در نوامبر، از آینده‌ای نامطلوب برای ترامپ و جمهوری‌خواهان حکایت دارند. هنوز معلوم نیست دموکرات‌ها بتوانند اکثریت هر دو مجلس را به دست آورند، اما پیروزی آنها در مجلس نمایندگان محتمل به نظر می‌رسد. اگر چنین شود، از بهار آینده موجی از تحقیقات، احضار مقام‌های دولت و جلسات پرسش‌وپاسخ سخت در کنگره آغاز خواهد شد. این وضعیت ممکن است ترامپ را از مسئله ایران منحرف کند یا او را به کاهش فشار بر جمهوری اسلامی وادارد. به نظرم مردم ایران باید دو سناریوی کاملاً متفاوت را در نظر داشته باشند. سناریوی اول: ترامپ برای خلاص شدن از دردسر ایران، دوباره به توافق اسلام‌آباد برگردد؛ توافقی که به باور من، عملاً چیزی جز تسلیم آمریکا در برابر جمهوری اسلامی نبود. او ممکن است ترجیح دهد با دادن امتیازات بیشتر، پرونده ایران را موقتاً ببندد و روی مشکلات داخلی تمرکز کند. سناریوی دوم: ترامپ پیش از آنکه دموکرات‌ها در ژانویه کنترل مجلس نمایندگان را به دست بگیرند، به یک کارزار نظامی تازه علیه جمهوری اسلامی متوسل شود؛ به‌ویژه اگر نتانیاهو در انتخابات اسرائیل پیروز شود. ترامپ ممکن است بخواهد پیش از تغییر موازنه قدرت در واشنگتن، یک پیروزی نظامی و سیاسی به دست آورد. پس از انتخابات نوامبر هم شاید نگرانی او از افزایش قیمت بنزین کمتر شود. با توجه به رفتار گذشته ترامپ، بعید می‌دانم شکست جمهوری‌خواهان را به‌عنوان نشانه‌ای از شکست سیاست‌های خودش بپذیرد. حتی ممکن است تا زمانی که کنگره جدید فشار جدی بر او وارد نکرده، بر همان سیاست‌ها پافشاری بیشتری کند. نتیجه برای ما ایرانی‌ها روشن است: نباید آینده مبارزه با جمهوری اسلامی را به تصمیم‌های غیرقابل پیش‌بینی ترامپ گره بزنیم.
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
When my grandparents came here from Italy, nobody was kissing their asses trying to make them comfortable. There was no “press 2 for Italian.” No expectation that the cashier, bank teller, or guy at the DMV spoke Italian. And they sure as fck didn’t demand it. They learned English, worked their asses off, raised their families, and became proud Americans. They never forgot their roots, but they understood something we’ve apparently forgotten. They came to America. America didn’t come to them. Now expecting people to learn English is somehow controversial? Give me a friggin break. Be proud of your heritage. Speak whatever language you want at home. But don’t expect an entire country to adapt to you. My grandparents came here to become Americans, not to turn America into Italy. And I refuse to apologize for believing that still matters.
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Time to lock and load! These vermin need to be put out of business. 🤨
US radicals headed to France to join cop-bashing protests are planning to bring riots to our shores trib.al/bIKtwLF
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
بعد از انتشار تصویر ثمین رستمی، پرستاری که هنگام امداد‌رسانی به زخمی‌های خیزش #دی‌_۱۴۰۴، جان عزیزش هدیه به میهن شد، یکی از همکاران او برای من متنی را ارسال کرد و خواست که منتشر کنم. او نوشته که جاوید‌نام رستمی، پرستار خوشنام و مهربان «بیمارستان آرام کرج» بوده که بعد از فراخوان اول_۱۸ دی_ همکارانش را به همراهی دعوت کرده است. همکار و دوست او که این متن را فرستاده، نقل می‌کند وقتی برخی همکاران ابراز نگرانی کرده‌اند، #ثمین_رستمی گفته که سال‌ها منتظر این فراخوان بوده و وظیفه می‌داند که‌ در کنار هم‌میهنان دیگرش باشد. نامش زمزمه‌ نیمه شب مستان باد…
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Turkey’s dictator Erdoğan still does not have Israel’s permission to visit Damascus, Syria’s capital, even almost two years after his Al-Qaeda forces conquered it! Today, a reporter asked Turkey’s dictator Erdoğan when he was going to visit Damascus. Erdoğan responded that the date had not yet been finalized. What Erdoğan did not tell the journalist is that Israel has not yet permitted him to visit Damascus.
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"Kids who struggle to write a paragraph but can recite that France is a colonial, systemically racist country. A welfare state that teaches you the country owes you everything and you owe it nothing. A political class that explains every failure by discrimination, never by choices, effort or culture."
To my American friends: if you don't want to repeat France's mistakes, read this. In 1983, kids from the French suburbs, mostly sons and daughters of North African immigrants, marched from Marseille to Paris. Their demand was simple: treat us as French. Equality. Same rules, same country. A year later, the Socialist Party captured that energy. SOS Racisme was born, with its little yellow hand and the slogan "Touche pas à mon pote" (Hands off my buddy). Concerts, celebrities, prime-time TV. On paper, a beautiful anti-racist movement. In practice, it changed the deal. The message to an entire generation stopped being "become French, this country is yours." It became "you are different, you are a victim, and France owes you." The right to difference replaced the duty to belong. Anti-racism became a political weapon and a moral alibi for the left. Assimilation is a demanding promise: you take on the language, the history, the codes, and in exchange the nation adopts you completely. We abandoned that promise. Instead of building the conditions for assimilation, we built the conditions for resentment. Then add socialism on top, and you get a lethal cocktail. A school system that stopped teaching and started preaching. Fewer fundamentals, more grievance. Kids who struggle to write a paragraph but can recite that France is a colonial, systemically racist country. A welfare state that teaches you the country owes you everything and you owe it nothing. A political class that explains every failure by discrimination, never by choices, effort or culture. Tell a teenager for 40 years that he's the victim of the country he lives in, and don't be surprised when he treats it like an enemy. Look at France right now. Since mid-September, a high school "movement" has turned into weeks of street clashes: nearly 700 police officers injured, more than 200 students hurt. On October 17, a nationwide day of protest that started over fuel prices and the cost of living. The Prime Minister himself said it was no longer a student movement but urban violence. And the far left tied the day to colonial memory and the 1961 Algerian massacre in Paris. A protest about gas prices, rewired into a trial of the nation itself. That's the software we installed in the 80s, running at full speed. Now look at New York. What I see forming there is the exact alliance we've had in France for 20 years: hard-left economics plus identity grievance, with political Islam welcomed as an ally instead of recognized as a problem. We even have a word for it: islamo-gauchisme. The far left needs a new oppressed class and new voters. Islamists need a political shield. Each uses the other. To be clear: this is not about Muslims as people. Millions of French Muslims are fully, proudly French, and they are often the first victims of this alliance, because it locks their kids into a victim identity and hands their neighborhoods to the most radical voices. It's about a political model. And I've watched it play out for four decades. America's superpower has always been assimilation. You show up, you become American. Hyphen optional, flag mandatory. The day you replace that with "you are a victim and this country owes you," you've started the French experiment. We ran it. I can tell you how it ends. Don't.
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
What happened?
Are you ready for the Democrats to win the Midterms? Are we cooked?
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
خانم دکتر قلابی، شیرین سعیدی، استاد سابق دانشگاه آرکانزاس که به دلیل افشاگری‌های اتحاد علیه مدافعان رژیم جمهوری اسلامی ایران (AAIRIA) درباره مواضع علنی‌اش در دفاع از جمهوری اسلامی، از این سازمان شکایت کرده است، اکنون از طریق نمایشگرهای بزرگ برای تجمعی از حامیان حکومت در ایران سخنرانی می‌کند. این تجمعات زیر نظر نهادهای رسمی تبلیغاتی جمهوری اسلامی، از جمله شورای هماهنگی تبلیغات اسلامی، برگزار می‌شوند؛ شورایی که سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی نیز در آن نماینده دارد. سعیدی با زبان خودش می‌گوید که برای مقامات جمهوری اسلامی دعا کرده، از رهبر جمهوری اسلامی با عنوان «رهبر شهید» یاد می‌کند و اخراجش از دانشگاه را نتیجه مخالفت با صهیونیسم جلوه می‌دهد. دقیقاً همین مواضع و رفتارهاست که باعث شده ما بارها درباره همسویی سیاسی او با جمهوری اسلامی و ترویج روایت‌های این حکومت در دانشگاه‌های آمریکا ابراز نگرانی کنیم. حالا همین فرد با وقاحت تمام از ما شکایت کرده است، آن هم به جرم طرح پرسش درباره همین ارتباطات و مواضع علنی! ویدئو را ببینید، سخنان خودش را بخوانید و خودتان قضاوت کنید. #FireSaeidi #StopIRILobby
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ستایش بی دریغ سایت محسن رضایی از امانپور نشان می دهد تا چه حد قدرشناس وسط بازیها، اسرائیل ستیزی ها و همکاری وی با اعضای لابی ج ا هستند. امانپور الگوی کسانی است که می خواهند روزنامه نگاری را به شغلی کثیف و کاسه لیسی اسلامگرایی و مارکسیسم تبدیل کنند.
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
Tom Barrack says the Islamic Republic is “not an evil regime,” just very religious. Mr. Barrack, let me remind you of what this regime has done. It began in 1979 with executions. Within weeks of coming to power, the Islamic Republic was lining people up before firing squads. Revolutionary courts handed down death sentences after summary proceedings. Political opponents, military officers, ethnic minorities and others were executed as the new rulers consolidated power. In the early 1980s, thousands more were executed, including teenagers. Families were sometimes forced to pay for the bullets used to kill their children. Survivors have recounted how virgin female political prisoners were raped before execution because their captors believed it would prevent them from entering heaven. In 1983, 17-year-old Mona Mahmudnizhad was hanged alongside nine other Baha'i women for refusing to renounce her faith. In 1988, thousands of political prisoners were sent to their deaths, many after interrogations lasting only minutes. Their bodies were buried in secret mass graves. Families were denied even the dignity of knowing where their loved ones lay. And the atrocities never stopped. Nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak was shot dead during the 2022 protests. Sixteen-year-old Nika Shakarami disappeared after joining demonstrations and was later found dead. Consider Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian American dissident abducted by Iranian agents in Dubai in 2020 and taken to Iran, where he was sentenced to death after a grossly unfair trial. He was killed in Iranian custody in 2024. When his body was finally returned to his family, an autopsy revealed that his tongue, larynx, thyroid and heart had been removed. Imagine his daughter's anguish, fighting for years to bring her father home, only to receive his mutilated body. In 2026, 19-year-old wrestler Saleh Mohammadi was publicly executed. Twenty-five-year-old Alireza Sepahi was executed after reportedly marrying his imprisoned fiancée just hours before his death. Then there are twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi, arrested following anti-regime protests. According to accounts from their family and lawyers, they were beaten and tortured. Interrogators threatened to rape Romina in front of Taraneh to extract a confession. Taraneh was sentenced to death, while Romina received decades in prison. And I cannot forget the father desperately searching for his 25-year-old son among the bodies at the Kahrizak forensic complex after the January 2026 massacre. His voice, captured on video, calling out again and again: “Sepehr-e Baba, where are you?” His son had been shot dead during the protests. A father who should have been welcoming his son home was instead searching through the dead, hoping to recognize his child. And 17-year-old Sam Afshari, shot during January's protests in Karaj. His father, Parviz, told me that bystanders took his wounded son to hospital, where doctors were trying to save his life. With a breathing tube still in his mouth, security forces shot him. His mother could only identify his disfigured body by the tattoo on his chest that read “Mother.” Sam was their only child. He had dreamed of studying computer engineering and joining his father in Germany. Instead, his family buried him with all the dreams he would never get to live. Think of the thousands of other parents who endured that same nightmare. Mothers and fathers searching morgues, examining photographs of bodies, burying their children and then facing intimidation simply for mourning them. For nearly five decades, the Islamic Republic has executed political opponents, tortured prisoners, persecuted religious minorities, imprisoned lawyers, crushed women's rights and terrorized families who dared demand justice. And that is not even half of it. Not even close. Mr. Barrack, religion is not an excuse for rape, torture, mass executions, shooting children or mutilating the bodies of political prisoners. These are acts of evil. And dismissing nearly five decades of such atrocities as merely being “very religious” is an insult to every victim, every grieving parent and every family still fighting for justice.
Tom Barrack: “The Islamic Republic is not an evil regime, just very religious”
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I have seen many roads like this in the former Soviet space. These are America's enemies who can't even pave a strategic route. But they are adept at black ops, infiltration and creating leftist movements to destabilize the West.
🇷🇺 road to 🇨🇳 near Amur
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Mardo Soghom retweeted
Oct 20, 1803: The Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase. The president who made the deal wasn't sure it was constitutional. Napoleon had offered to sell all of Louisiana, about 828,000 square miles, for $15 million. It doubled the size of the United States overnight. Thomas Jefferson was thrilled, and also uneasy. He had always argued the federal government could only do what the Constitution specifically allowed, and it said nothing about buying land from foreign countries. He drafted a constitutional amendment to make the purchase legal. Then his diplomats warned him that Napoleon was unpredictable and might change his mind if the US took too long. Jefferson dropped the amendment and sent the treaty to the Senate. Federalists in New England hated the deal. They feared new western states would shrink their power, and a few even talked about breaking away from the Union. It didn't matter. The Senate approved it 24 to 7. The US didn't have $15 million on hand. It paid largely with bonds sold through British and Dutch banks. That meant British bankers were helping finance a deal that put money in the pocket of Napoleon, Britain's worst enemy. Two months later the American flag went up in New Orleans. The next spring, Lewis and Clark set out to see what the country had bought.
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همه نظرسنجی‌های مهم پیش از انتخابات کنگره آمریکا در نوامبر، از آینده‌ای نامطلوب برای ترامپ و جمهوری‌خواهان حکایت دارند. هنوز معلوم نیست دموکرات‌ها بتوانند اکثریت هر دو مجلس را به دست آورند، اما پیروزی آنها در مجلس نمایندگان محتمل به نظر می‌رسد. اگر چنین شود، از بهار آینده موجی از تحقیقات، احضار مقام‌های دولت و جلسات پرسش‌وپاسخ سخت در کنگره آغاز خواهد شد. این وضعیت ممکن است ترامپ را از مسئله ایران منحرف کند یا او را به کاهش فشار بر جمهوری اسلامی وادارد. به نظرم مردم ایران باید دو سناریوی کاملاً متفاوت را در نظر داشته باشند. سناریوی اول: ترامپ برای خلاص شدن از دردسر ایران، دوباره به توافق اسلام‌آباد برگردد؛ توافقی که به باور من، عملاً چیزی جز تسلیم آمریکا در برابر جمهوری اسلامی نبود. او ممکن است ترجیح دهد با دادن امتیازات بیشتر، پرونده ایران را موقتاً ببندد و روی مشکلات داخلی تمرکز کند. سناریوی دوم: ترامپ پیش از آنکه دموکرات‌ها در ژانویه کنترل مجلس نمایندگان را به دست بگیرند، به یک کارزار نظامی تازه علیه جمهوری اسلامی متوسل شود؛ به‌ویژه اگر نتانیاهو در انتخابات اسرائیل پیروز شود. ترامپ ممکن است بخواهد پیش از تغییر موازنه قدرت در واشنگتن، یک پیروزی نظامی و سیاسی به دست آورد. پس از انتخابات نوامبر هم شاید نگرانی او از افزایش قیمت بنزین کمتر شود. با توجه به رفتار گذشته ترامپ، بعید می‌دانم شکست جمهوری‌خواهان را به‌عنوان نشانه‌ای از شکست سیاست‌های خودش بپذیرد. حتی ممکن است تا زمانی که کنگره جدید فشار جدی بر او وارد نکرده، بر همان سیاست‌ها پافشاری بیشتری کند. نتیجه برای ما ایرانی‌ها روشن است: نباید آینده مبارزه با جمهوری اسلامی را به تصمیم‌های غیرقابل پیش‌بینی ترامپ گره بزنیم.
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