Handling — and Mishandling — the Iran Nuclear Program
One, erratic and often unhinged, blew up the U.S.-Iran accord that was the landmark foreign policy achievement of President Obama’s second term. He then ordered the assassination of a top…
One, erratic and often unhinged, blew up the U.S.-Iran accord that was the landmark foreign policy achievement of President Obama’s second term. He then ordered the assassination of a top…
On April 18 the US and UK imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran. On April 17 European Union leaders had talked aggressively about ramping up sanctions on Iran.…
The United States and its imperialist allies will imminently announce new sanctions targeting Iran as the US-led war drive against Tehran continues to accelerate. In a statement Tuesday, US National…
In what is seen as an unprecedented international diplomatic move, the White House has asked the Tehran government if it would allow Israel to engage in a “symbolic retaliatory strike”…
Forty-eight hours after Iran launched an airstrike on Israel, Israeli officials offered indications Monday that Israel is preparing military strikes on Iranian targets, as the US-provoked war in the Middle…
The Middle East has, for some time, been a powder keg where degrees of violence are tolerated with ceremonial mania and a calculus of restraint. Assassinations can take place at…
Israel is under attack by incoming Iranian drones and ballistic missiles. The Jordanian skies lit up with passing missiles and drones as they made their way to Israel. They were…
Iran made all the due preparations over the last few days and then struck Israel with a mighty series of blows with its drones and cruise missiles. Iran's retaliation was…
US President Joe Biden warned yesterday that Iranian retaliation in response to Israel’s highly provocative April 1 attack on Iran’s consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus was expected “sooner…
Tensions between Israel and Iran reached new heights Thursday after the United States warned of an “imminent” attack being planned by Tehran. The Iranian regime has said since Israel’s bombing…
In the midst of Israel’s ongoing devastation of Gaza, one major piece of Middle Eastern news has yet to hit the headlines. In a face-off that, in a sense, has…
Iran's Parliamentary elections is scheduled to be held on March 1, 2024. The elections will be for the twelfth term of the 290 seats of the Islamic Consultative Majles (House…
On September 22, 2023, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his speech at the UN General Assembly, showed a map of "the New Middle East" and implied that the entire…
Theocracy in Iran is based on a legend that a hidden Imam will resurface on the earth and bring justice to the world. According to Article 5 of the Islamic…
“Take off your headscarf, let your hair flow, don’t be afraid my love. Laugh, protest against fear.” In opening a panel discussion titled “The Masha Amini Protests and the Road…
The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. and its European allies in the early 2000s alarmed the clerics in Tehran that they may be next to lose power.…
The women-led anti-hejab movement that began after the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, in Iran, is ongoing. Even though the street protests have subsided, many Iranian women…
The clerical leadership in Iran has tried hard to prevent its demise, as is popularly demanded in recent months by Iranians inside and outside Iran. To continue their Islamic rule,…
Women's Day A few days ago, on Woman's Day, an article called our attention to the plight of Iranian women, who are fighting for their freedom and civil rights against…
The Islamic Republic of Iran was the first UN member ever to be expelled from the prestigious Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), tasked with protecting women’s rights and…
In Iran, the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody, believed to be beaten following her arrest by the “Morality Police” on the grounds that her hair was visible,…
The European Union has returned to the ritual of sanctioning Iran to leverage its foreign and security policies. The highlight of the EU Foreign Affairs Council ministerial meeting in Brussels…
I would like to announce the publication of a new nook, entitled “Iran, Past and Present”. The book may be downloaded and circulated, free of charge, from the following link:…
The ongoing unrest in Iran since mid-September following the death of a Kurdish woman in police custody shows no signs of abating as of now. The unrest has drawn support…
Since the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, unrest in Iranian cities has continued. So far, more than 100 people have been killed in the riots, and many political…
The Iranian Human Rights Organization (IHRO) announced that the number of people killed in the on-going protests in Iran reached "at least 154 people". Among this number of deaths 9 were…
‘One day the hijab will no longer be compulsory in Iran, this is part of progress and development’ – Parvaneh Salashouri, reformist lawmaker, women’s faction in Iranian Parliament, 2018 ‘The…
Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, the ruling clerics have strictly enforced the Islamic hijab on women in Iran. The clerics require women above puberty age to wear headscarves and…
Iranians took to the streets for a 10th consecutive night Sunday, in defiance of a warning from the judiciary, to protest the death of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in morality police…
Norway-based, Iran Human Rights Organization says that they can confirm that at least 31 protesters have been killed in the on-going anti-government, anti-hijab protest across Iran. Iran's state-run media acknowledged on…
In the largest crackdown on its film industry since 2010, Iran ordered internationally acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi, 62, to serve a six-year jail sentence after he criticised the government. Panahi…
The United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, responsible for military fiascos, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and innumerable war crimes in the Middle East, are now plotting to attack Iran.…
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi says the first priority of his administration during the Persian New Year is boosting employment and creating new jobs. He made the remarks in his New…
by Ariel Gold and Medea Benjamin After a 5-month hiatus, indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran resumed last week in Vienna in an attempt to revise the 2015 Iran…
The terrible secret about Faustian deals is that they need a Mephistopheles to nurture them. That said, Goethe’s Mephisto is very different from the crude devil of medieval legend. Goethe…
Like in a Wagnerian music drama, there is an associated melodic theme that accompanies the situations behind the two big regional developments last week — the announcement of the AUKUS,…
The incipient signs of a US retrenchment from Saudi Arabia have appeared in a series of moves in the past 2-3 weeks. On a parallel track, the Biden Administration is…
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies At Bagram air-base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of U.S. military equipment that was until recently the headquarters…
Introduction On July 7, 2021 Iran hosted talks between the Afghan Government and Taliban (the Taliban delegation was led by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai). The same day, the Taliban attacked…
The rise of hardline President-elect Ebrahim Raisi has prompted someanalysts to counterintuitively suggest that it could pave the way for reduced regional tensions and potential talks on a rejiggered Middle…
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies It was common knowledge that a U.S. failure to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) before Iran’s June presidential…
This may seem a paradox but the truth is that the United States does not realise that Iran’s presidential election result — the resounding victory of the conservative head of the judiciary…
“Unbearable.” That’s the title of Reza Khandan’s gut-wrenching Ms. Magazine report from the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) Qarchak prison for women. Khandan is the husband of attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, who is imprisoned…
“India gets booted out, by Iran, of Farzad-B gas field in Persian Gulf… India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd had discovered it way back in 2008.” India began to identify itself with…
The Saudi-Iranian contacts that began last month in secrecy have gained gravitas. Significantly, this is an exclusively regional initiative. The Saudi-Iranian drive to normalise ties is motivated primarily by the…
Over the weekend, Iran marked National Nuclear Technology Day. The stars of the show were going to be new advanced centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. Unfortunately, the stars…
By a fortuitous happening, the top South Block official heading the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran Division in India’s External Affairs Ministry, J.P. Singh was in Iran in the weekend, hot on the heels…
“Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promise, for never intending to go beyond promise costs nothing.” - Edmund Burke Joe Biden’s statements on resuscitating the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of…
Brigadier General Mohsen Fakhrizadeh of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC) and Iran’s most important nuclear scientist was assassinated not too far from Tehran recently. Iran immediately accused Israel ,…
All too often, events occur that make me feel that I am living in 'Bizarro World'. The recent talk and extensive US corporate media coverage about whether or not the…
Since mid-August of this year, there has been an increase in the number of Iranian and Azerbaijani reports celebrating the continued warming of relations between these neighboring states. Of particular…
Shahran oil depot in north west Tehran has been likened to a "hydrogen bomb" The subterfuge and sabotage, particularly after the August 4, 2020 Beirut, Lebanon blasts 1…
There are no official policing authorities as such when it comes to international relations. Realists imagine a jungle of states, the preyed upon and the predators, a grim state of…
Was Donald Trump’s January 3rd drone assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani the first step in turning the simmering Cold War between the United States and Iran into a hot war in…
There is a whole lot of churning going on in Iran, which has been at loggerheads with US, for around more than five-decades, as it traces its modern tussle with…
July 14th, 2020, marks the fifth anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Agreement, often referred to as the Iran Nuclear Deal (or simply the Deal) – the…
I met my dear friend Maryam in the spring of 1980. We studied at the same US University in Rhode Island. She was a couple of years older than me…
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies On May 6th, President Trump vetoed a war powers bill specifying that he must ask Congress for authorization to use military…
This spring, the novel coronavirus pandemic has raised the issue of the relationship between the blindest kind of religious faith and rational skepticism -- this time in two countries that…
International relations is typified by its vagueness of definition and its shallowness of justification. Be it protecting citizens of a state in another, launching a pre-emptive strike to prevent what…
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