LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Iran: Iran Air
built 651 days ago
Iran's foreign relations are based on sometimes competing objectives. Iran's pragmatic foreign policy goals include, not surprisingly, protecting itself from external threats and building trade ties. Iran has additionally been accused... of trying to export its fundamentalist revolution to other countries, sometimes supporting terrorist organizations, and its vehement anti-U.S. and anti-Israel stances are well-known. Senior Iranian officials directed Hezbollah to carry out the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA, the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) building in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, killing 85 people and wounding scores of others. Out of the eight individuals indicted by the Government of Argentina in October 2006, the Interpol Executive Committee has recommended the issuance of Red Notices (international arrest warrants) against six: five former or current Iranian officials and one Lebanese Hezbollah leader.
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Iran Air connects Tehran with some of the major European cities as well as destinations in Asia and Middle East. European companies landing in Tehran include British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM, Alitalia, Turkish Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Aeroflot and Air France. Here are some of the Middle-Eastern airlines: Saudi Arabian Airlines, Emirates, Syrian Airlines and Egypt Air. So finding a flight to Iran should not be hard.
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Iran has threatened to defend itself if attacked. It could use medium-range missiles to hit Israel or US military targets in Iraq and the region. It could ... use its missiles and submarines to attack shipping in the Gulf, the main export route for much of the world’s energy needs. “Once you have dealt with the nuclear sites you would have to expand the targets,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Gardiner. “There are another 125 to deal with including chemical plants, missile launchers, airfields and submarines.”
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For the next 25 years, the Shah of Iran stood fast as the United States' closest ally in the Third World, to a degree that would have shocked the independent and neutral Mossadegh. The Shah literally placed his country at the disposal of US military and intelligence organizations to be used as a cold-war weapon, a window and a door to the Soviet Union-electronic listening and radar posts were set up near the Soviet border; American aircraft used Iran as a base to launch surveillance flights over the Soviet Union; espionage agents were infiltrated across the border; various American military installations dotted the Iranian landscape. Iran was viewed as a vital link in the chain being forged by the United States to "contain" the Soviet Union. In a telegram to the British Acting Foreign Secretary in September, Dulles said: "I think if we can in coordination move quickly and effectively in Iran we would close the most dangerous gap in the line from Europe to South Asia.'' In February 1955, Iran became a member of the Baghdad Pact, set up by the United States, in Dulles's words, "to create a solid band of resistance against the Soviet Union".
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When Iraq invaded Kuwait in Aug., 1990, Iran adhered to international sanctions against Iraq. However, Iran condemned the use of U.S.-led coalition forces against Iraq during the Persian Gulf War (1991), and it allowed Iraqi planes fleeing coalition air attacks to land in the country. As a result of the war and its aftermath, more than one million Kurds crossed the Iraqi border into Iran as refugees.
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Iran spends about 3.3% of its GDP on its military. Iran's military consists of both a national military held over from the shah's government and the IRGC, each with its own ground, naval and air braches. The Iran-Iraq war took a heavy toll on these military forces. Iran is trying to modernize its military, including ballistic missile programs, and acquire weapons of mass destruction; it does not yet have, but continues to seek, nuclear capabilities.
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