4 Change9 Easy Propaganda steps to War with Iran
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Juan Cole. The Trump administration is now in full disinformation mode, using all the classical techniques of propaganda to put the gullible US public on a war footing…
Trump and the Middle East: a Long Record of Personal Failure
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Melvin Goodman. Many American presidents have blundered in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, but Donald Trump’s personal involvement in the region has been particularly disastrous. President…
Threat of war in the Middle East is real
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Yassamine Mather. A common question journalists ask these days – if they are not asking about Brexit – is ‘Will there be a war against Iran?’ and, if…
Three poems by Forugh Farrokhzad, a woman alone
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
English Translations of selected Poems and Poetry of the great Iranian Poet Forugh Farrokhzad فروغ فرخزاد Forugh, one of the most famous Persian Women poets died in a…
Will Iran Be Forced To Close the Strait Of Hormuz? Between A Rock And A Hard Place
Monday, May 6, 2019
Vincent Lofazo. With the United States strangling Iran’s oil exports, Iran threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. On…
Vartan: a poem of resistance by Ahmad Shamlou
Friday, April 12, 2019
“Vartan didn’t Say a Word” is a political poem by Ahmad Shamlou that underwent censorship because of being addressed to a political prisoner who was tortured to death…
At least 62 people killed in Iran floods as US accused of blocking aid
Friday, April 5, 2019
Emma Graham-Harrison. The death toll from two weeks of flooding in Iran has risen to 62 as frustration mounts inside the country at the government’s handling of the…
Why Israel is quietly cosying up to Gulf monarchies
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Ian Black. The meeting publicly showcased the remarkable fact that Israel, as Netanyahu was so keen to advertise, is winning acceptance of a sort from the wealthiest countries…
Is a War With Iran on the Horizon?
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Bob Dreyfuss. Here’s the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all…
Why artists are speaking up against ‘dirty money’ in Iranian cinema?
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Rohollah Faghihi. The phenomenon of “dirty” or suspicious money appears to have increasingly found a new haven: Iran’s cinema and TV production industry. In 2015, Interior Minister Abdolreza…
Iran: Women’s right and the class struggle
Friday, March 8, 2019
Yassamine Mather. Friday March 8 is International Women’s Day, which this year coincides with the 40th anniversary of the first major protest by Iranian women against the Islamic…
Iran’s ecologists imprisoned as water shortage threatens the country
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Maya Margit. Amid worsening diplomatic and economic isolation, Iran is continuing its crackdown on perceived dissidents. Among the targets: environmental scientists. A recent Amnesty International report claimed the…
Iranian Revolution: 40 years of inequality
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Yassamine Mather. Commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the February 1979 uprising in Iran has been marked by dozens of scholarly seminars in Europe, numerous documentaries produced by…
Poems: Lanat Abad / The Place of the Damned & [Persian Letters]
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Two poems by Solmaz Sharif Lanat Abad / The Place of the Damned By Solmaz Sharif this mangy plot where by nowonly mothers still come, only mothers guard…
Untangling The Web Of The Saudi-Israeli-US Propaganda War On Iran
Monday, February 11, 2019
Behnam Gharagozli. Shortly after the horrific attacks on 9/11, it was discovered that there was an American plan to dismantle the regimes of seven countries: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,…
Will Iran Sanctions Herald the Fall of the Imperial Dollar?
Thursday, February 7, 2019
Nicolas J.S. Davies and Medea Benjamin A shorter version of this article was originally published by The Hill. When the Trump administration unilaterally pulled out of the Iran…
Edging Toward War With Iran?
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Conn Hallinan. Keeping track of the Trump administration’s foreign policy is like trying to track a cat on a hot tin roof: We’re pulling out of Syria (not…
Iran’s looming Instagram ban shows hardliner disconnect
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Kourosh Ziabari. Instagram, widely used in Iran among small business owners, students, influencers and even senior officials, is the latest social media application to come under scrutiny and…
The Attack on Iran that Wasn’t
Sunday, January 20, 2019
Shemuel Meir The title of Ehud Barak’s recently published autobiography My Country, My Life declares that it is a book not just about Barak’s life, but also a…
Iran: workers’ strikes and State Department crocodile tears
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Yassamine Mather. Iranian workers have been staging large protests since early November in two major industrial complexes: the Haft Tapeh sugar plant and the Foulad steel factory in…
What Is Behind Iran’s New Wave Of Civil Resistance?
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Mina Yousefi. For a little over a year, Iran has witnessed a new wave of civil resistance, which had been brewing in various towns and cities around the…
Tehran’s little secret: Cafe where disability is no barrier to talent – and serving tea
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Sahar Esfandiari. TAs Mehdi Khakyan’s hands move skilfully across the piano keys, the soft chatter in the room subsides to hone in on the melody of a well-loved…
Iran’s Policy In Post-US Syria Is To Block Kurdish Left
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Maysam Behravesh. US President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement last week of the withdrawal of American troops from Syria caught many people off guard, including his own administration officials. It…
Saudi Crown Prince MbS Tries to Restart the Lebanese War
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Paul R Pillar. The record of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) as de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia has included a trail of regional destabilization. Foremost on…
Will India Help Iran Avert Sanctions-Related Medical Crisis?
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Aveek Sen, Mojtaba Mousavi, and Udayan Tandan. Zeinab, the mother of a four-year-old girl suffering from blood cancer, says that “Mina has been under medication for nearly five…
US sanctions have caused a crisis for Iranian Kurds
Friday, December 14, 2018
Douglas Gerrard. Of the four countries into which Kurdistan is divided, the region spanning Iran is the least prominent in western consciousness. Rojava is well known amongst leftists due…
Syria, Iran, Georgia: Slippery Slope In Discussing Oil Smuggling And Sanctions
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Seth Ferris. The history of sanctions teaches us that they are like a pole – you can find a way around them, and in the process, find a…
Books on Middle East 2018 – tales of repression, ruse and resistance
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East. David Kirkpatrick, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018. From 2011 to 2015, David Kirkpatrick was the…
A Saudi Murder Becomes a Gift to Iran
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Vali Nasr. The Trump administration is not ready to admit it, but its Middle East strategy is in deep trouble, now compounded by the murder of the dissident…
Saudi plans for regional domination are not meeting with much success
Monday, November 19, 2018
Yassamine Mather. More than six weeks after the death of Jamal Khashoggi we know a lot more about his tragic plight after he entered the Saudi consulate in…