Commentary
A Step Too Far
[ opinion ] "This trip to Israel was a New Year's gift to the Iranian regime," read one reaction from an internet user who, like many, was enraged by Caspian...
Biden, Israel, and Tehran's Hardliners
[ opinion ] In the depth of their worries about the deep crisis into which they have brought Iran over the past nine months; amid all the problems that they...
What's next--the 'Arabian' Gulf?
[ comment ] Whenever officials of the Islamic Republic start paying too much attention to something it usually means that there is cause for concern, that a new fault has...
Sharpen the Peaceful Weapon
Smarter slogans can boost the opposition's strength on and off the street. [ opinion ] The next major occasion slated for street protests in Iran is unclear. Will it...
Breaking the Stereotypes of Persia and Iran
The Green Movement: Breaking the Stereotypes of Persia and Iran. [ comment ] The West has constructed the dual identities of Persia and Iran as alter egos, the former the...
A Winning Strategy
A Winning Strategy: Principles for Effective Civil Disobedience in Iran. [ opinion ] In the nine remarkable months since the fraudulent June 12 election, more and more people in Iran...
Different Shades of Green
[ opinion ] The debate over the future direction of the Green Movement has taken on new urgency since the events in Tehran on February 11, the 31st anniversary of...
Iranian DNA or Fear of Déjà vu?
Is the Green opposition beset by the inability of Iranians to work together, or is it simply trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of 1979? [ analysis ] The one...
Deciphering Rafsanjani
[ analysis ] Iranians are a complex people. Talking in riddles and metaphors is a cultural thing that everyone learns from a young age. Iranian politicians have mastered this 'art...
Was Rigi's arrest by Iran staged?
[ analysis ] The arrest of Abdolmalek Rigi, the commander of the Baluchi Jundollah movement, is a major victory for Iran. For years, Rigi had masterfully eluded capture, staying for...
The Militarized Death of the Republic
This was first published by Tehran Bureau on July 6, 2009. The momentous June presidential election in Iran and its bloody aftermath will probably be remembered as a turning...
Post-Imperialism in Iran
[ comment ] The 1979 Iranian Revolution took place during the Cold War, when Third World societies were deeply affected by anti-imperial ideologies. The Revolution's politicized Islamic movement was influenced...
Were the Greens Defeated?
[ opinion ] February 11, the thirty-first anniversary of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, finally arrived. Many people had high hopes that the day would represent another major advance for...
Overview: Reading 22 Bahman
[ analysis ] February 11 may mark a decisive day for the Iranian regime. Its leaders hope to prove to domestic and international audiences that they are in full control...
Mousavi and Martyrdom
How the regime calculates the personal challenge. [ opinion ] Columbia University professor Hamid Dabashi considers Iran's Green Movement a civil rights struggle. Others contend that there is a revolution...
We Are Our Dogs
The paradoxes of the Islamic Republic. "I wish I were one of your dogs," a friend once said as she sat at the table waiting for me to cut...
New sanctions miss the target
[ comment ] On Thursday, the Senate approved S2799 -- the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009 -- which authorizes President Obama to impose sanctions on any...
UPDATED: Who Murdered Ali-Mohammadi?
[ analysis ] On January 12, 2010, Dr. Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, a professor of physics at the Faculty of Science at the University of Tehran, was assassinated in front of...
Khiabani on the Arab Street
[ comment ] "It's not pleasant being Arab these days," Lebanese historian and journalist Samir Kassir observed in his posthumously published book, Being Arab. A stalwart of the Arab left,...
Another liquidation by internal forces?
[ opinion ] Another political murder rocked Iran this week. This time the victim was Vali Haji Gholizadeh, who was shot dead outside his home on Tuesday, January 19, in...
From Birmingham to Tehran
Reflections on Dr. King's Influence on the Pro-Democracy Movement in Iran "The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath...
The Question of Political Strategy in Iran's Green Movement
[ opinion ] What is now known as Iran's Green Movement was born on June 13, 2009, in reaction to massive electoral fraud during the Islamic Republic's tenth presidential election....
A Response to the Leveretts
A Response to Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett Flynt Leverett directs the New America Foundation's Iran Initiative and is a professor of international affairs at Pennsylvania State University. Hillary...
Fighting Revolution
[ analysis ] As the Islamic Republic prepares to celebrate its anniversary next month, similarities between the current turmoil and the one that led to a successful revolution 31 years...
Can the Khomeinis challenge Khamenei?
[ opinion ] The Tehran-based Parsine news Web site recently reported about the possible move of the Khomeini family to the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. According to the...
Strategic Leaking
[ comment ] Pretend for a moment that you are the president of the United States and you have gotten yourself into a bit of a hole with your Iran...
Technology and U.S. Foreign Policy
[ opinion ] Last week, the Obama administration took a positive step in addressing what had been an embarrassing incongruity in U.S. policy towards Iran. While publicly espousing democratic ideals,...
The start of an Iranian intifada
[ analysis ]An Iranian-style intifada seems to be in the making. At the beginning of the current period of opposition, which started soon after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial reelection, quiet periods...
Thursday at Toopkhaneh
An eyewitness account. [ dispatch ] I was early for the appointed time of 3 p.m. but already police stood in fours and fives, elsewhere in groups of a dozen...
Letter from Tehran
[ comment ] Tehran is still Tehran. It's as if I never left, but merely stood aside to blink or rub from my eyes the smoke that sits heavy on...
Iran After Montazeri
A legacy that will haunt the regime. [ analysis ] The demise of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri brought an important chapter in the history of the Islamic Republic to a...
The Regime's Mousavi Problem
[ analysis ] Six months into a deep political crisis, a growing set of indicators is emerging that show the Islamic Republic of Iran is so fed up with post-election...
Opinion: The Wrecking Ball
[ comment ] Back in the summer of 1979, months before the Iranian mob -- egged on by Ayatollah Khomeini -- seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, U.S. diplomats in...
Seeing Green
[ comment ] It's been a busy day of driving through Tehran in hired cabs. Heavy traffic afforded me time to ponder, an exercise I practiced almost Zen-like in order...
Opinion: Help Iranians Harness the Internet
[ comment ] The United States and the international community should support efforts to provide unfiltered Internet access to the Iranian people, and take measures to curb censorship by the...
Every Which Way But Lose
[ analysis ] Iran's controversial presidential election left a thorn in the government's side, and few signs indicate a return to calm in the near future. A running "calendar battle"...
28-Mordadism: A Postmortem
[ comment ] This year, Iranians around the world are commemorating the 56th anniversary of the CIA-sponsored coup of 1953, or as we call it indexically on the Persian calendar,...
The Supreme Leader's Slow Purge
[ analysis ] Half a year after Iran's disputed presidential election, the Islamic regime is suffering from partial paralysis. Despite thousands of arrests, scores of killings, widely publicized show...
The Hardliners' Nulcear Dilemma
[ comment ] Iran's rejection of a preliminary agreement it reached on Oct. 1, 2009, in Geneva, has taken its confrontation with the United States and its allies in the...
A Footnote?
[ comment ] By the time Sir Winston Churchill became a British premier for a second time in 1951, he was already a legend. He rose from the First Lord...
The lost cause and the mojo thief
[ comment ] Despite the belief, held by many, that the fiery movement originating from the heart of the Iranian youth's discontent would lead to regime change, no government overthrow...
Hezbollah's Man in Iran
[ comment ] Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour is a careful man. Ever since his right arm was blown off in Iran's Damascus embassy in the early 1980's, he has become more...
Courageous & Principled: Journalists Isa Saharkhiz and Ahmad Zeidabadi
[ profile ] Nov. 10, 2009, marked the 55th anniversary of the execution of Dr. Hossein Fatemi (1919-1954), the distinguished Iranian journalist who served as Foreign Minister during Dr. Mohammad...
Since the 1979 revolution, relations...
[ comment ] Since the 1979 revolution, relations between the United States and Iran have vacillated between outright enmity and degrees of cooperation, from American support for Iraq during its...
Narges Kalhor: Little Brother
Narges Kalhor is the daughter of Mehdi Kalhor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media advisor. In the following letter to the little brother she never met, she hints of the Orwellian lessons ahead....
The Hostage Crisis, 30 Years On
[ feature ] Nov. 4 marks the the day, 30 years ago, when Islamic leftist students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 69 people hostage. Seventeen of them...
Nuclear proposal leaves Ahmadinejad on the sidelines
[ comment ] Iran's judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani has become the latest high-ranking Iranian official to express skepticism about an international proposal to send the country's nuclear fuel abroad for...
'Same old tricks'
[ comment ] Iran's purported response to IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei's plan should not have come as a surprise to anyone. True to form, Iranian administrations have always shown...
Iranian Greens are not Revolutionaries
[ comment ] It has been four and a half months since the Islamic Republic of Iran, like the giant of fables, foolishly broke the jar that contained its life....
The Faltering Islamic Leviathan
The faltering Islamic leviathan and the rebirth of the private cult in Iran. [ comment ] Despite the apparent success of the Iranian regime's initial crackdown against the post-election uprising,...
The Sheikh of Reform: Mehdi Karroubi
[ profile ] During national election campaigns in any country, politicians are known to make bold declarations and set lofty goals. Very few deliver even on a fraction of those...
Worse than Shah-era Capitulation Laws
30 years after the revolution, foreigners 'more equal' under Iranian law. [ comment ] Ayatollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic, became a hero and the leader...
Learning from History, Charting the Future
What are Iranians calling for? Expanded civil liberties, or a ground-up change? [ comment ] Amidst the chaos of today's Iranian politics, many questions remain unanswered. The most relevant: what...
Abandoned
Obama's Lost Opportunity [ comment ] Events in Iran have unraveled like a nightmare for many of us Iranians. First, the presidential election, which seemed to hold some promise...
Changing Tehran: No Pain, No Gain
[ comment ] Things rarely change in Washington. Frustrated by an adversary's policies, the reflex action of political moderates up and down Pennsylvania Avenue is for increased sanctions, and for...
Another Aviation Scapegoat
[ comment ] Mohammad Ali Ilkhani, head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (IR-CAO), was let go after only two and half months in the job. He is being replaced...
The case of the missing Iranian nuclear physicist
[ comment ] New information has emerged indicating that the United States may have become aware of the developing Qom uranium enrichment facility by an Iranian nuclear scientist -- or...
Dissent at the Top
Photo: Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Mohammad Datsgheib [ comment ] The seismic effect of Iran's June election has now reached the Assembly of Experts, the most conservative institution in the...
The only viable way to confront Ahmadinejad
[ opinion ] Why would anyone be shocked by the so-called revelation that another uranium enrichment facility exists somewhere near Qom? It amazes me how even Iranians of the...
Has Iran violated its nuclear safeguards obligations?
[ analysis ] On Monday, Sept. 21, 2009, the Iranian government sent a letter to the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) to say it was constructing a second uranium...
Iran's 'secret' nuclear plant: an instant reaction
[ comment ] Less than a week before Iran is due to meet six world powers, including the United States, over its atomic programme, the news of a "secret" Iranian...
Ahmadinejad: 'Sanction us!'
How an oil embargo against Iran would help the hard-liners [ opinion ] Before going to face the empty seats of the United Nations General Assembly and the angry Iranians...
Ejei steps in to find Karroubi's lost marbles
[Comment] The other week, the live debate program on Iran's channel 2 had a well-known guest...
D-Day for the Greens
By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 19 Sept 2009 Comment Quds Day was crucial to both the Green Movement and the hardliners. The Green Movement wanted to demonstrate...
Co-opting Quds Day
Kayhan's banner headline quotes from Ayatollah Khomeini: "I'm going to smack this government in the mouth." By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 17 Sept 2009 Comment This year...
Iran's Animal Farm
Animal Farm meets 1984 By HANA H. in Tehran | 10 Sept 2009 Comment Iranian politics is an unpredictable madhouse made up of all the crazies, majorly deluded and...
Where is Iran headed?
Living in a bubble, increasingly out of touch. Archive photo. By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 8 Sept 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] Comment The crackdown on peaceful demonstrators protesting...
Coup Leaders Afraid to Face the People
By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI | 6 Sept 2009 Friday prayers, religious holidays and religious ceremonies have always been used by the Islamic Republic to showcase the support that it supposedly...
IRGC declares open war on the reform movement
Nikahang Kowsar/Roozonline Reporting from Tehran | 5 Sept 2009 The emergence of Mohammad-Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, as the new spokesman for the right-wing establishment push against...
Ahmadinejad & Family Take on 'New' Foreign Policy
The joke in Iran is that the country has three Foreign Ministers, including Johns Hopkins-educated pediatrician, Ali Akbar Velayati (in gray suit), special adviser on foreign affairs to Ayatollah...
Shariati on Religious Government
The Islamic Revolution once looked more Ali Shariati than Ali Khamenei -- though it is said that Ayatollah Khamenei was also a fan of Dr. Shariati at one point. The...
Isolated, weak and as delusional as ever
Ahmadinejad, pictured with the halo of light he claims the audience saw over his head the first time he addressed the UN General Assembly in New York, says "Torture...
The Bloody Red Summer of 1988
The 1980s were the bloodiest and darkest in the contemporary history of Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini (center), has his hand kissed. Seyyed Asadollah Lajevardi (lower right in white turtleneck and...
Hajji Corleone, Sonny Seyyed and the Rapists who got away
Crumbling brotherhood: A younger Mehdi Karroubi seated next to a younger Ali Khamenei. By HANA H. in Tehran | 21 August [TEHRAN BUREAU] Comment When Mehdi Karroubi went public...
Ahmadinejad's Security Cabinet
Photo: Sadegh Mahsouli (standing) says he is worth $160 million. He was a penniless IRGC officer at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Ali Khamenei, then president, seated on...
London Calling
Iran and the UK have a long intertwined history -- but familiarity doesn't always breed contempt. Members of Prime Minister Mossadegh's family went to school in Britain; even Ali...
Patriots and Reformists: Behzad Nabavi and Mostafa Tajzadeh
By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 11 Aug 2009 Of all the reformist leaders who have been the target of the wrath of Iran's hardliners, none, with the...
IRGC: Arrest Mousavi, Khatami, and others
By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 10 Aug 2009 Comment Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, head of the political directorate of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), the backbone...
The Show Goes On
Show Trials, Part II By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 9 Aug 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] comment & analysis The second installment of the mass trial staged against reformist...
Fooling themselves alone
Iran's show trials resumed on Saturday. Photo/Fars News By JASON REZAIAN in Dubai | 8 Aug 2009 As the trials of more than 100 political prisoners, charged with inciting...
If I Confess...
A statement for the times. By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 6 Aug 2009 Mehdi Bazargan, Iran's first prime minister after the 1979 Revolution, is one of the...
Why Russia & China Love Iran's Hardliners
Russia knows how to play the hardliners -- by keeping them in need. By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 5 Aug 2009 Marg bar Amrica -- "Death to...
Show Trials Get Under Way
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a prominent reformist and a cleric (clutching white piece of paper), was part of a group of 100 or so opposition figures who went on trial...
Mahmoud's friends, enemies and the iditots in between
By Hana H. in Tehran | 31 July 2009 Comment After the post-election unrest in Iran, one man stood by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This man did all the dirty...
Showdown between Khamenei and IRGC?
Who's really in charge? Is there a confrontation looming between Iran's supreme leader and the Revolutionary Guard? By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 28 July 2009 analysis Two...
America's Misguided Left
The support of some on the American left for Ahmadinejad is badly misguided. By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 24 July 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] comment Iran's rigged presidential...
A Charter for the Green Movement
After weeks of virtual silence following his declared intention to form a new political front, Mir Hossein Mousavi's official Web site, Ghalam News, announced Wednesday that the opposition leader...
Lines Are Drawn in Iran
By FARIDEH FARHI in Honolulu | 22 July 2009 [IPS] With the historical Friday Prayer sermon given by former president and current chair of the Council of Experts and...
People driving movement, not politicians
By JASON REZAIAN in Dubai | 20 July 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] Op-Ed On May 21, I headed to Tehran to cover a president election that no one can claim...
Rafsanjani's Sermon, Split in the Leadership
By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 17 July 2009 Today's much anticipated Friday prayer ceremony was held at Tehran University. Crowds of people, some who could not get inside,...
Comment: 'Indiscriminate US Sanctions Resulted in Crash'
Iranians gather near the debris of the Caspian Airlines plane which crashed into a farmland near the city of Qazvin, northwest of Tehran. -- AFP A personal account of...
The Ultimate Unveiling of Iranian Women
Photo/Newsha Tawakolian By FARZANEH MILANI Have you considered the gender makeup of the two opposing camps in Iran today? On one side, is an all-male cabal of gun-totting, club-wielding...
A Call to Prayer, More Protests
Rallying around Rafsanjani. A victory for the reformists? By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 13 July 2009 The leader of Tehran's Friday prayers is selected on a rotating basis...
18 Tir: The Past and Pending
Sign reads: "Evin Prison Accepting Students" I remember very vividly the eeriness of the streets; the quiet whispers of the wind. Had ghosts trodden there? Perhaps, as there was...
Faith No More
7 July 2009 There is too much blood. Too much blood on the streets, too much blood on the news, on Facebook, in emails. There is blood everywhere. My...
Crocodile Tears for Iranians
By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 5 July 2009 Elections in Iran, whether presidential, parliamentary, or even for city councils, are always preceded by great debates over a...
Reformers Hold Firm
By ROBERT DREYFUSS | 6 July 2009 Efforts by the Ahmadinejad-Khamenei regime to silence the opposition clearly aren't working yet. The street protests, brutally suppressed, have quieted. But the...
The significance of 18 Tir
By JASON REZAIAN in Dubai | 5 July 2009 The many tools implemented by the Islamic Republic to sedate its populous are the same ones now being used as detours...
The Widening Divide Among Iran's Clerics
The rift in the clerical establishment By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 30 June 2009 As the Iranian government crisis enters its 19th day, fissures among the clerics...
Why Do Arabs Not Revolt?
Photo/Stephan Geyer By RAMI G. KHOURI in Beirut The stark contrast between the street demonstrations in Iran in the past two weeks and the absence of any such popular...
I could have settled for Michael Jackson
By M.E. Dabiri in Tehran | 28 June 2009 I say, I don't accept him as my president. I haven't accepted him for the past four years, and I...
A View from the Frontline
Last week, a group of friends and I organized a medical team to help the wounded and injured in the streets. As we sewed up gashes and patched up...
Who will lead?
Who will lead? The Experts Assembly has the power to remove Ayatollah Khamenei. By GARETH SMYTH in Beirut | 25 June 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] While Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lived,...
Iran's New Revolutionaries
By BABAK SARFARAZ in Tehran | 24 June 2009 For those steeped in the arcane art of Khamenei-watching, June 19 holds a special significance. On that day, after issuing...
Leaving Tehran
By JASON REZAIAN in Dubai | 24 June 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] I decided to leave Iran a couple of days ago for several reasons. First of all, it was...
The Arabs' Forlorn Envy of Iranians
Broadly speaking, the Arab world has maneuvered itself into a lose-lose situation vis-a-vis developments in Iran -- despite different views of the Islamic Republic. By RAMI G. KHOURI in...
A Way Forward
Photo: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 23 June 2003 Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered what was widely considered to be a completely polarizing...
This is not my country
Near Azadi Square, June 20, 6 p.m., Tehran. Photo/TehranBureau By HANA H. in Tehran | 23 June 2009 I am an Iranian and I love my country but what...
Larijani: Between Khamenei and Kant
By MARSHA B. COHEN | 21 June 2009 Perhaps it's the same video clip being broadcast over and over again, exaggerating the significance of a particular moment caught by...
Iran Makes History Again
Protester holds up sign quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, "A nation derives its ("real," scribbled in) legitimacy from the vote of the people." Photo/via Flickr By RAMI KHOURI in Beirut |...
Rafsanjani's next move
Differences over foreign policy are central to the crisis in Tehran By GARETH SMYTH in Beirut TEHRAN BUREAU | The clearest sign of the bitter division within Iran's political...
Iran's Rural Vote and Election Fraud
Photo/Nieman Foundation By ERIC HOOGLUND I just heard a CNN reporter in Tehran say that Ahmadinejad's support base was rural. Is it possible that rural Iran, where less than...
Another coup for the Hardliners
By MEA CYRUS in London | 12 June 2009 What happened at the polls today was sadly predictable. One strong indication right from the start was that the supreme...
Iran's Power Struggle
By GARETH SMYTH in Beirut As he surveys the aftermath of the rioting in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be assessing the crisis he faces. Referring the complaints from...
No Fools
By M. E. DABIRI in Tehran | Received June 15, 2009 (published 3 July 2009) [TEHRAN BUREAU] opinion This is an insult to one's dignity. If they had cheated...
Faulty Election Data
By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 13 June 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] Iran's Interior Ministry has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner of yesterday's election. This has been rejected...
Who Voted for Ahmadinejad?
By ROBERT DREYFUSS in Tehran | 12 June 2009 I went off in search of Ahmadinejad voters today in Tehran. They are noteasy to find. It's perfect election weather...
Why I Voted
By M.E. DABIRI in Tehran | 12 June 2009 I stood in line at 9:45 on a warm, sunny morning at the Al-Rahman Mosque, four blocks from my flat, in...
The Supreme Leader's One Vote
By MEA CYRUS in London | 5 June 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] Back in 1997, many believe that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had made up his mind to back the...
Girl Power
By JASON REZAIAN in Tehran | 10 June 2009 It was to be one of Mir Hossein Mousavi's final campaign stops, a medium-size stadium in the lower half of Tehran,...
Statement of Academics
8 June 2009 By Professor Ervand Abrahamian, City University of New York | Dr Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, School of African and Oriental Studies | Professor Haleh Afshar, University of York |...
Obama's Home Run in Cairo
By ROBERT DREYFUSS in Dubai | 4 June 2009 [The Nation] I watched President Obama's Cairo speech from Dubai, the sprawling and frenzied city of gold and shopping malls...
The ghost of elections past
By AFSHIN SALIMPOUR in Tehran | 3 June 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] It was a masterstroke of attack in the form of defense. In Iran's second televised presidential debate of...
Report Ties Dubious Iran Nuclear Docs to Israel
By GARETH PORTER in Washington, D.C. [IPS] 3 Jun 2009 -- A report on Iran's nuclear programme issued by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month generated news stories...
Iran's Ralph Nader?
The Curious Case of Mehdi Karroubi | 3 June 2009 [TEHRAN BUREAU] Mehdi Karroubi -- the former chairman of the Iranian Parliament, an ethnic Lur and an outspoken critic...
Of Loos and Language (The Iranian Version)
Of Loos and Language: the Iranian version By M.E. DABIRI in Tehran I have the dubious distinction of having always lived in a country whose language I did not...
The Big Picture
An evolving geopolitical landscape: U.S., Iran, Russia and Central Asia By REZA AKHLAGHI in Toronto [TEHRAN BUREAU] Iran's geographic position situates it uniquely in Central Asia, the Middle East,...
Israel & Iran's nuclear program
Israel vis-a-vis Iran's Nuclear Program: the Crux of the Issue By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles [Tehran Bureau] Although the Obama administration has made it clear that it wants...
Unseen Iran
What's it like not to see Iran, but smell, touch and hear it? "A Scent of Iran" is the second installment of UNSEEN IRAN, Mani's travel log. Part 1,...
Vartan Gregorian to Obama: Send a message!
Vartan Gregorian, President of the Carnegie Foundation, published his would-be letter from President Obama to the Iranian leadership in U.S. News & World Report. Born in Tabriz, Iran to...
Middleman
What's it like not to see Iran, but feel, smell and touch it? This is the first installment of Mani's travel log to Iran. By MANI DJAZMI en route...
The View from Washington
THE OBAMA'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE... US-IRAN MEETING... good/don't expect movement soon By CHRIS NELSON in Washington D.C. [The Nelson Report] Much punditry has already been expended arguing that while the...
Iranian Election Plot Thickens
Khatami's withdrawal from the election campaign is bad news for Ahmadinejad. By GARETH SMYTH in Beirut [Tehran Bureau] The withdrawal of Mohammad Khatami from Iran's presidential election has disappointed...
Three not so wise men
Iran's reformists may run three candidates for president, boosting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's chances of being re-elected.By GARETH SMYTH in Beirut In 2004, around 80 reformist deputies staged a sit-in and...
Islamic influences in Florence
By KAMIN MOHAMMADI in Florence [Tehran Bureau] Visitors flock to the marvel of Renaissance expression, an ebullient city which, between the 14 to 16th centuries, led the world in...
A Guide to Iran
A jaunt through Tehran, Esfahan and Persepolis. By JASON REZAIAN in San Francisco The joke was barely out of my mouth before I regretted making it. "The Great Satan," I'd...
Persepolis, a la Grecque
Photo/Effie-Michelle MetallidisBy EFFIE-MICHELLE METALLIDIS in Shiraz My hand scrapes along a wall of fallen Persepolis as the sun wanes. We've reached the site just as the centuries-old ritual between...
An American in Tehran
Welcome to Mehrabad. By MICHELLE MAY in Tehran As I sat squashed, dehydrated, and inhaling stale air on Air France flight 554, I worried that I had bit off...
Nowruz in Abu Dhabi
Desert storm: Emiratis and Qataris flex their muscles (with a little help from their friend). By GOLNOUSH NIKNEJAD in Abu Dhabi [Tehran Bureau] It was back in March, a...
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