Iran says it has arrested 17 CIA spies, some sentenced to death

Whatever you think of the CIA (and I have very mixed feelings towards them) this is clearly not the right move on Iran's part.

Although, I guess there's a sad predictability to this in the current climate.

How many of those are actually CIA vs. just government opposition that Iran is using CIA as a cover to make them disappear

Wolfpack: Trumps policy towards Iran is really starting to bite now. You can expect the Islamic extremists to continue to lash out as the regime comes under continuing pressure.

Yep. Just as everyone expected would happen. We're either exactly where Trump wants us to be, or we're working with someone who couldn't see the obvious. Not sure which one is worse.

The announcement comes as Iran's nuclear deal with world powers is unraveling and tensions have spiked in the Persian Gulf region. The crisis stems from President Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States out of Tehran's deal last year and intensify sanction on the country.

An entirely predictable situation.

Trump has asked Iran to develop nuclear weapons by bailing out of the previous deal (because of his extreme insecurity about Obama's achievements). Instead of ensuring they do not develop them by the aforementioned deal, by pulling out and increasing sanctions Trump has said Iran should develop them, NOW, not in a hypothetical 10 years later.

Well done, Trump!

Iran could just make up the whole thing and it would have the same effect on the people.

He also handed out a CD with a video recording of an alleged foreign female spy working for the CIA. The disc also included names of several U.S. Embassy staff in Turkey, India, Zimbabwe and Austria who Iran claims were in touch with the recruited Iranian spies.

Really?

Oh, I'm sure he handed out a CD, but it was probably about as real as that 'high tech' stealth fighter they unveiled a year or two ago...

The same Iran that liberals support ever chance you get whenever it leads to orange man bad. So you don’t support what they are doing this time?

I don't know many here who support the regime in Iran. But until Trump's betrayal of the deal, they were keeping to the rules of the agreement. Now, who knows what's going to happen?

The US executes people, too.

Sure, after lengthy, expensive trials that can go on for the better part of a year, followed by endless appeals and years on death row before the execution can even be carried out. And the people we choose to execute have committed actual heinous crimes like murder, not being caught looking in the wrong direction.

That is a terrible comparison.

@extanker,

exactly.

And who just passed criminal justice reform to right the wrongs of our justice system?

Donald J. Trump.

Who insists on double standards and won’t support equal justice? Liberals.

smithjapan:

Trump has asked Iran to develop nuclear weapons by bailing out of the previous deal (because of his extreme insecurity about Obama's achievements)

I pointed this out before, but it seems to fall on deaf ears: withdrawing from Obamas disastrous "deal" was one of his campaign promises. Like or not, but are you now complaining that a politician actually follows up on his promises? Would you be happier if he forgot all about them after the election?

I don't know many here who support the regime in Iran. But until Trump's betrayal of the deal, they were keeping to the rules of the agreement.

They never were and there was no way Iran was going to not try to enrich uranium to start the process. If Iran were really abiding by the rules unequivocally, they would shut the world up, definitely the US and allow the IAEA to come in randomly and check every site they have, they haven’t and they won’t, there’s your answer, so Trump as well as Mossad, the Pentagon and the Saudis were correct, the treaty, null and void.

Now, who knows what's going to happen?

Depends on what Iran wants to do and where they want to take this. They need the sanction relief, we’re fine.

He also handed out a CD with a video recording of an alleged foreign female spy working for the CIA. The disc also included names of several U.S. Embassy staff in Turkey, India, Zimbabwe and Austria who Iran claims were in touch with the recruited Iranian spies.

Really?

You have to go back 70 years in US history. In the case of Iran you only need to go back to this afternoon.

For executing spies, sure. But the US executes people all the time.

If you are actually against the death penalty, say so.

And who just passed criminal justice reform to right the wrongs of our justice system?

Donald J. Trump.

Who insists on double standards and won’t support equal justice? Liberals.

Irrelevant partisan nonsense.

17 (some might call them collaborators) have been caught spying. What should be done with them?

For executing spies, sure. But the US executes people all the time.

If we did and if that were even close to the truth, Snowden, Manning, Bergdahl would be 6 feet under now.

So, you're grand with the CIA recruiting Iranians to do their dirty work & then throwing them under the bus when it all goes south.

Most countries that spy know the consequences of what happens if they are caught, especially in covert missions, depending on the mission, you are made aware of this and usually and are often told you would be disavowed or not even acknowledged or a flat denial that of the person or the mission. Dirty business, but that is life.

Trumps policy towards Iran is really starting to bite now. You can expect the Islamic extremists to continue to lash out as the regime comes under continuing pressure. It’s a good idea to force the regime to focus on its own survival over expanding its terrorist activities in the region.

The big question is all this nonsense, is why is the American right going to allow itself to be dragged into yet another war to benefit Israel ... and to pay for it yet again not just in Dollars but in American lives?

Are we doomed to repeat history yet again?

Iran is just fine, leave it alone and allow soft power and liberalism to work its magic in changing human values.

Remember, it was the US and the West that raised the fundamentalists to power and devilled in the Iran-Iraq conflict.

Had we not meddled the last time around, they would have risen to power and Iran been a perfectly modern country by now, as it was developing in the 70s.

Bass4funk: They never were 

Trump personally certified that they were in compliance. Trump has never said they weren't in compliance at any point.

You are making up non-existent things to justify a decision that you can't justify on its own.

Trump personally certified that they were in compliance. Trump has never said they weren't in compliance at any point.

Trump never liked the deal and remember, all Presidents have advisors and Trump to his credit, listened to his advisors and other foreign intelligence agencies that the treaty was a piece of trash, it would have never passed Congress just on the Iranians not allowing weapons inspectors to have full and unfettered access to their sites.

Ah yes, the all too familiar death, from the compassionate Islamic republic.

It’s Iran killing Iranians. The same Iran that liberals support ever chance you get whenever it leads to orange man bad. So you don’t support what they are doing this time?

boom boom boom the war drum beats harder, check the sources , agendas, and quo bono from a nice expensive war?... answers on a post card to.... who you think?

A barbaric act from a barbaric ideology

Strikes me as inconsistent when one considers how many times you've called for women to be executed right here in Japan.

But yes, the death penalty is barbaric, whatever country carries it out.

Is no one ask why the US is leaning on Iran, that has no nuclear weapons and has allowed inspections, while giving a free pass to Israel, that HAS nuclear weapons (and forbidden chemical weapons) and refuses to sign up to any treaty and allow inspections by International Atomic Energy Agency - and has been stealing nuclear secrets from it?

(The reason Israel's centrifuges are near-identical to Iran's is because they smuggled in stolen intellectual property, along with an entire freighter full of uranium ore in the middle of the Mediterranean.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/truth-israels-secret-nuclear-arsenal

If the potential for nuclear weapons is the issue, why isn't the US going after Israel, who has proven itself to be a rogue player and terrorist state more than once, even destroying an American naval ship?

Ah yes, the all too familiar death, from the compassionate Islamic republic.

The US executes people, too. As does its ally, Saudi Arabia.

@Toasted Heretic,

Sure, but no iranian style kangaroo courtd in the US.

A barbaric act from a barbaric ideology