Iran is on its back foot, says incoming Trump adviser

"Do you have a camera on that?" the Leighee daughters asked with laughter, pointing to their shirts donning an image of a young Donald Trump with the word "Daddy" printed below.

The Leighees, who radiate the image of an all-American family, harbor views on Iran and foreign policy that underscore Trump's appeal to disentangle from international conflicts and put "America First".

"I think sanctions and deterrence are imperative," said Mattley Leighee on combating Iran.

The prevailing sentiment among many of the Donald Trump supporters who waited for hours in the cold and rain to attend his victory rally ahead of the president-elect's inauguration is not to engage in war with Iran.

Iran International spoke to several people to get a sense of how they feel about Iran and about Trump's foreign policy.

The Leighees criticized the Biden administration for releasing frozen assets to Iran in a prisoner swap in September 2023 and said they're more concerned with US domestic issues.

"Foreign policy these past four years made us weak," said Mattley Leighee.

Wearing a beige fur vest and a parrot named Murphy sitting atop his left shoulder, Ken Houghton, a Trump supporter said he loves Iran and its people.

"Before there was Rome, there was Persia," said Houghton.

"We cannot go to war. We must be friends," said Houghton on the possibility of going to war with Iran to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power.

"Sanctions and having a strong policy to adversaries is okay, but we cannot go to war with Iran. I love Persian culture, their history is some of the most deeply rooted," he added.

Sue Skelly, who travelled from Southern California to attend the rally, said she hopes that Trump can help the people of Iran.

"I hope Trump can undo what Jimmy Carter did," said Sue Skelly referring to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousting the monarch in 1979 during the Carter administration, "I have a lot Persian neighbours and I love them."

Heather Hertig, witnessed the shooting of the president-elect in Pennsylvania in July from the first row, and said she views Iran as a threat.

"I feel Iran had a hand in that [shooting]," said Hertig, "I'm afraid of Iran."

The FBI identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crook and said he had no ties to Iran. US intelligence has revealed that the Islamic Republic has been behind other attempts on Trump's life.

Hertig supports any move Trump decides to make on Iran, but she said she has a 24-year-old and she doesn't want to see him get drafted.

While fans of Donald Trump are not keen on war, Trump has surrounded himself with Iran hawks like Senator Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz. Trump has threatened to bomb Iran into “smithereens” after reports surfaced of agents at the behest of the Islamic Republic plotted to assassinate him.

Former press secretary Sean Spicer, attending Sunday victory rally, told Iran International he would support any action to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

"The president understands we face multiple threats. Iran being one of them, " said Spicer who served in the White House in 2017, "I would support anything that prevents Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Vafadar was arrested on May 9, 2024, after the release of a music video titled “Standby” on his Instagram pages, whose lyrics said the Iranian people would retake Iran from the Islamic Republic.

Danial Moghaddam, the other singer of the song, was also arrested in May but released in July.

​​The repression of rappers in Iran has continued unabated over the past few years. Toomaj Salehi was the most prominent rapper who was sentenced to death for his songs but the verdict was later overturned, and he was released on December 1, 2024.

Another dissident rapper, Saman Yassin, was also sentenced to death on charges including "enmity against God, assembly and collusion to act against national security."

But the verdict was later overturned, and he was sentenced to serve five years in prison in exile in Kerman province in southeastern Iran.

Yassin arrived in Berlin on Friday after being temporarily released on medical furlough.

"Woman, Life, Freedom forever," Yasin wrote in a post on X, sharing a video of his arrival in Berlin airport, without providing further details of how he had left Iran.

Mehdi Yarrahi, a prominent pop music composer and singer, was also handed a verdict of two years and eight months of imprisonment along with 74 lashes over his support for the 2022 protest movement as well as his songs against the clerical rule.

Tehran-based Shargh newspaper reported that the building’s confiscation followed a Dutch court’s rejection of NIOC's request to annul the auction of its Rotterdam property, ruling in favor of the buyer, Dutch real estate company Heuvel Vastgoed B.V. The building, seized due to an arbitration ruling, had been sold on April 20, 2023.

Shargh's report said that NIOC had argued that the building, as a government-owned asset, should be immune from seizure. Heuvel, however, countered that the property was acquired legally through a public auction.

Ultimately, the court dismissed all of NIOC's appeals, including the request to reclaim the building, the report said.

NIOC's $2.6 billion debt to CGC stems from disputes over a 25-year gas supply agreement signed in 2001.

In April 2001, NIOC entered into a contract with UAE based Crescent Petroleum Company International Limited (CPCIL). However, in 2003, CPCIL assigned its rights and obligations under to its wholly-owned subsidiary, CGC.

The agreement required NIOC to deliver 600 million cubic feet of gas per day via pipeline.

The contract, finalized during the second term of Iran's president Mohammad Khatami, faced challenges after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, elected in 2005, questioned the agreed price of $18 per 1,000 cubic meters, amounting to $98.5 million annually. As a result, the gas supply never commenced as planned.

This led to CGC to file a case against NIOC in 2009 with the international court of arbitration, and in 2010 the NIOC cancelled the contract. Iran then ignored a 2013 arbitration court ruling in The Hague that found the Iranian side liable. An international tribunal ruled in 2014 that the NIOC was in breach of its obligation to deliver gas since December 2005.

In September 2021, a tribunal ruled that NIOC must pay CGC approximately $2.43 billion in damages, plus interest. This award comprised $1.3 billion for CGC's lost profits and $1.1 billion for CGC's liability to its subsidiary, Crescent National Gas Corporation Limited (CNGC), for its lost profits.

The seizure of the Rotterdam building is not the first time Iranian assets have been confiscated over CGC-related debts. In April 2024, a British court ordered the confiscation of a £100 million ($125 million) property in central London owned by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Known as NIOC House, the building was located near the British Parliament and Westminster Abbey and had been in Iranian ownership for nearly 50 years.

"They were rewarded by God through their martyrdom at the hands of the enemies of God," Khamenei told the families of the two judges after leading their funeral prayers.

Judges Mohammad Moghiseh and Ali Razini had decades-long histories of handing down death sentences and lengthy prison terms to dissidents in numerous cases.

The cases handled by the two judges, both of the clerics, involved political dissidents, activists, followers of the Baha’i faith, dissident clerics, and those accused of security-related "crimes."

However, Khamenei said after his prayers that "Razini and Moghiseh accomplished great deeds throughout their lives, which made them deserving of this reward from God.”

On Saturday, a 31-year-old janitor entered the first floor of the Branch 39 of Iran's Supreme Court, pulled a firearm from under his clothing, and opened fire on Ali Razini, Mohammad Moghiseh, and a security officer, the Iranian government's newspaper Iran reported.

"After targeting the three individuals, he left the courtroom with the same weapon, fled to the third floor, and then committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart," the report added.

Iran's former justice minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi told the state TV the assailant was looking for a third judge on the third floor, but the judge was not in the building at the time.

Based on investigations, the janitor's presence in the courtroom until his departure from the room took only 13 seconds, the newspaper's report said.

It did not specify the type of weapon used in the rare deadly shooting but mentioned that six shots were fired in rapid succession. Other reports in local media mentioned that a semi-automatic handgun was used.

The Iran newspaper also noted that investigations revealed the young janitor had no prior disputes with the judges, but his motive remains unclear.

In his interview with the state TV, Pourmohammadi said the janitor mentioned the MEK exiled opposition group, indicating that it was a targeted, preplanned attempt to seek revenge against the judges who were allegedly involved in the mass executions of prisoners, mainly MEK supporters, in the 1980s.

The Islamic government has identified the attacker as a janitor, but this has raised questions about how a janitor could have obtained a firearm, smuggled it into a heavily guarded court building, and demonstrated the skill and speed required to carry out such a precise attack.

The report about Tataloo's death sentence was first published by Jame Jam newspaper, which is affiliated with Iran's state broadcaster.

However, the Judiciary's media office dismissed the report, saying the final verdict for Tataloo has not yet been issued.

"He has recently become eligible for leniency under legal provisions. Leniency provisions, or legal reprieves, are measures outlined in criminal law to assist convicts in line with the restorative justice approach," the Judiciary said.

The blasphemy charge had been overturned and referred to a parallel court after the prosecutor objected to the verdict issued by the Ninth Branch of the Criminal Court.

The 37-year-old underground musician, once a vocal supporter of the Islamic Republic who had been living in Istanbul since 2018, was extradited back to Iran by Turkish authorities in December 2023 and has since been held in detention.

Last year, he was handed multiple prison sentences after trials starting in March 2024 accused him of several offenses including promoting "prostitution," disseminating "propaganda" against the Islamic Republic, and other broadly defined charges of "obscene content."

Known for his distinctive tattoos and his fusion of rap, pop and R&B, Tataloo had previously found favor with conservative politicians looking to engage Iran’s young, progressive audience.

In 2017, he even participated in a televised meeting with the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi, who later become Iran's president before being killed in a helicopter crash in 2024.

In a notable moment in 2015, as the landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers was unraveling, Tataloo released a song in support of Iran's nuclear program.