4 ChangeThe Attack on 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…
Poems by Ahmad Shamlu, Iranian poet
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
“Ahmad Shamlou, also known under his pen name, Alef Bamdad, is among the most influential Iranian literary voices of the twentieth century and widely known as the father…
Iran: national teachers’ strike could herald new era of dissent
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Omid Shams. Iran witnessed a nationwide strike by teachers on October 14-15. Iranian social media exploded with photos and videos of the teachers’ sit-ins at elementary and high…
The Trojan Horse In Iran Sanctions And Oil Markets
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Cyril Widdershoven. The U.S. sanctions on Iran are not biting yet, as global oil markets are well supplied. In the coming weeks, Iranian crude volumes should show a…
Trump Administration Ramps Up Threats Against Iran
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Marjorie Cohn. The alleged torture, murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, widely believed to have been carried out on orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, may…
Yemen war death toll five times higher than we think
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Patrick Cockburn. One reason Saudi Arabia and its allies are able to avoid a public outcry over their intervention in the war in Yemen, is that the number…
Playing with Fire: Trump, the Saudi- Iranian Rivalry, and the Geopolitics of Sectarianization in the Middle East
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi. Sectarian conflict has been on the rise in the Middle East in recent years. From the catastrophic wars in Syria and Yemen to…
Why US Sanctions Won’t Change Iran’s Foreign Policy
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Maysam Behravesh. The messages from Tehran are stark. On October 1, Iranian forces fired six missiles at Daesh positions in eastern Syria. The weapons landed within three miles…
Iran Truck Drivers Go On Strike, Crippling Oil Infrastructure
Friday, October 5, 2018
Tsvetana Paraskova. Oil truck drivers in Iran have started a new strike demanding improved working conditions, and the industrial action has resulted in large lines forming at gasoline…
Squeezing Iran: Part two the Iranian perspective
Friday, September 28, 2018
Interview with Ardeshir Mehrdad. Mehdi Kia: In the first part of the interview[1]http://www.middleast4change.org/squeezing-iran-part-1-trumps-project-in-the-middle-east/we talked of the evolving line-ups in the Middle East in the backdrop of recent massive…
Iran’s Ahvaz Attack Worsens Gulf Tensions
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Joost Hiltermann, Ali Vaez, Elizabeth Dickinson, and Daniel Scheiderman. Posted on Lobelog Sept 24, 2018. An attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz on…
Yemen’s Descent into Hell: A Saudi-American War of Terror
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Rajan Menon. Posted on TomDispatch and CounterPunch September 20, 2018. It’s the war from hell, the savage one that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with…
Idlib, Syria: Fire burn and cauldron bubble
Monday, September 17, 2018
Esen Uslu. Posted on Weekly Worker Sept 13, 2108. The forces of Bashar al-Assad and his allies, Iran and Russia, are poised to strike deep into Syria’s Idlib…
Iran missile strike opens door to escalation with Kurdish armed groups
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Fazel Hawramy. Posted on Al-Monitor Sept 14, 2018. The patience of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) with Iranian Kurdish groups operating from northern Iraq was wearing thin. Spiraling…
Iranian Kurds begin strike against executions and missile attacks
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Wladimir van Wilgenburg. Posted on Kurdistan24, September 12 2018. ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iranian Kurdish shopkeepers on Wednesday began Rojhilat-wide (Iranian Kurdistan) strike against the executions of Kurdish…
A Look Inside MEK’s Secretive Camp In Albania
Monday, September 10, 2018
Lindsey Hilsum. Broadcast on Channel 4 news, UK, September 10, 2018. A Look Inside MEK’s Secretive Camp In Albania Published on the Iranian
Lebanon is on a tightrope, balancing the Saudis, Iran and the West
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Robert Fisk. Posted on Zcommunications and the Independent September 4, 2018. Facing possible invasion from both Britain and Germany in 1940 and determined to remain neutral, the Irish government in Dublin asked one of…
Squeezing Iran: Part 1, Trump’s project in the Middle East
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Interview with Ardeshir Mehrdad. Mehdi Kia: The last few weeks has seen an escalation of US pressures on an Iran already reeling under economic and political crisis and…
Asia’s Shifting Alliances in the Time of Trump
Saturday, September 1, 2018
Conn Hallinan. Posted on ZNet August 30, 2018. “Boxing the compass” is an old nautical term for locating the points on a magnetic compass in order to set…