It’s the pot calling the kettle black. As Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of seeking to encircle it with its support for Houthi rebels in Yemen as well as Qatar, the kingdom and the Islamic republic are extending their bitter rivalry beyond the Middle East into the Caucasus.

In a report to Congress regarding sanctions on Iran, it was mentioned that under the *Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action* (JCPOA) Iran benefits from lots of sanctions relief in return for certain restrictions that are laid out under UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears in the wake of recent anti-government protests to have put his weight behind President Hasan Rouhani’s repeated calls for reduced military and Revolutionary Guards involvement in the economy.

If week-long anti-government protests in Iran exposed the Islamic republic’s deep-seated economic and political problems, they also laid bare Saudi Arabia’s structural inability to establish itself as the leader of the Sunni Muslim world.

To organize the ongoing protests and anti-government demonstrations in Iran, the Iranian people have been using social media. It has enabled them to arrange protests and to share information.

Roughly 66,000 people in Iran have HIV and almost half of them are unaware, according to estimates by the Iranian Regime, but as the Regime routinely underreports statistics that make the country look bad, it is likely this number is much higher.

In mid-October, Donald Trump outlined a strategy to defeat the Iranian regime that was dedicated to countering Iran’s regional destabilisation, support of terrorism and use of ballistic weapons, as well as its illicit nuclear programme.