Distilled to its essence, Tehran’s steadfast support for Assad is not driven by the geopolitical or financial interests of the Iranian nation, nor the religious convictions of the Islamic Republic, but by a visceral and seemingly inextinguishable hatred for the state of Israel.—Karim Sadjadpour

CBI issues a statement clarifying the foreign travel issue. Each Iranian has the right to buy 1000 euro per year for a maximum 1 travel per year. Given that buying foreign currency at other rates is officially banned, it means the regime is imposing a travel ban on Iranians.—Saeed Ghaseminejad

Today...a murderous regime threatens us.... This regime explicitly declares that it intends to annihilate us, the Jewish state...I have a message to the Iranian rulers: Do not test the determination of the state of Israel, these are not empty words.—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

No country has done more--financially and military--to back the Assad regime’s mass murder of Syrians than the Islamic Republic of Iran, a theocracy that rules from a moral pedestal—Karim Sadjadpour

Regret participating in an event with NIAC in 2011. When I analyzed what they say and do, I realize what they say is closer to what the government says than what the people want...Reform is useless in Iran, The Iranian people are very dissatisfied with their current government. They have reached the point and realized this system is not reformable.—Shirin Ebadi

NO ARAB LEADER has ever acknowledged “the right of Jews to have a nation-state of their own next to a Palestinian state”, MBS [Saudi Crown Prince] acknowledged that in this interview. —Jeffrey Goldberg

Mr. Obama wanted, more than anything else, a nuclear deal with Iran. Sadly, the administration sacrificed Syrian civilians and American credibility for the mistaken notion that Iran required appeasement in Syria as the price for a nuclear agreement. The reckless impunity we witness today of Russia’s Vladimir Putin is a poisoned dividend of the Obama administration’s Syria policy.—Fred Hof, former Obama official

As I resisted their efforts, one of the staff ordered his colleague to call the U.S. Secret Service. I thought it was ironic that officials of Iran-where pro-regime crowds chant “Death to America” were now calling on the U.S. Secret Service to help them against a woman who had refused to cover her hair.— That’s when it dawned on me. As far as Iran is concerned, the biggest threat comes not from the United States, but from unveiled women like me.—Masih Alinejad

I think that Persian society, on the whole, is in a post-Islamic situation already,...The young generation has accepted the reality of plural identities. When I talk to them, they say, ‘We are Western and we are Persian.—Iranian philosopher Dariush Shayegan

In our country, there exists freedom of thought, freedom of expression,& freedom of choice. No one with ideas & thoughts opposing the establishment is pressured, threatened, or persecuted by the establishment. —Seyed Ali Khamenei