Iran

By Pardis Mahdavi, Arizona State University | – As the days grow longer and the flowers start to bloom, my 7-year-old gets excited and exclaims, “Nowruz is coming.” Nowruz – or “new day” in English – is the Iranian new year. Celebrated at the exact moment of the spring equinox, this is a secular festival […]

Iran

On Nowruz, the Persian New Year: Can the United States and Iran Turn a New Page in Their Relations?

Farhang Jahanpour

Oxford (Special to Informed Comment) – Sunday 20th March is the vernal equinox, which has been traditionally celebrated by Iranians as Now Ruz (New Day), the Iranian New Year. It is also celebrated in many countries in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The first recorded mention of Now Ruz dates back to […]

Banking

Top 7 Ways Iran evaded US Sanctions that Putin could Follow

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The sorts of sanctions and boycotts the United States and its allies are placing on Russia resemble those applied by Washington to Iran off and on in the past decade, though so far the measures in place against Tehran are still far more severe than what has been done to […]

Authoritarianism

Iran Must Release Prominent Anthropologist Fariba Adelkhah (MESA)

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom, Middle East Studies Association | – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, Head of the Judiciary Your Excellencies, We write on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) to express our grave dismay over the […]

Iran

Revolution and Exile: A Poignant New Memoir of Iran

Fariba Amini

Review by Fariba Amini. Neda Toloui-Semnani, They Said They Wanted Revolution: A Memoir of my Parents, New York: Little A, 2022. Newark, Delaware (Special to Informed Comment) – Beautiful, inspiring, heartbreaking and truth telling are terms that come to mind describing the new memoir by Iranian- American journalist Neda Toloui-Semnani. Among the many memoirs written […]

Arab Americans

US Media (Rightly) focuses on Ukrainian Rights, but it Racializes Muslims deprived of those Same Rights

Assal Rad

(Special to Informed Comment) – Speaking about the significance of knowledge and its role in democracy, President John F. Kennedy once stated that only an “informed people will be a free people, that the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” One of the most important institutions that informs public […]

Iran

Foes of a new Nuclear Agreement Demonize Tehran, but what is Iranian Society really Like Today?

Ali Abootalebi

Eau Claire, Wi. (Special to Informed Comment) – The nature and the parameters of power relations in the state-society relations in Iran since the 1978-79 revolution have radically changed. The revolution ended the twenty-five-hundred-year-old monarchical rule in Iran and gave rise to a Shi’a ‘ulema-dominated rule. The demise of the old Pahlavi regime saw the […]

Iran

Iran nuclear deal: to reset relations with Tehran, Biden must overcome a long legacy of mistrust at home

The Conversation

By Andrew Payne and Louise Fawcett | – As officials from Washington and Tehran return to Vienna for talks that aim to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran hawks in the US Congress are determined to prevent that happening. In a letter sent to the US president Joe Biden on February 7, Republican US senator […]

Dissent

‘State Of Explosion’: Leaked IRGC Document Warns Of Rising Discontent In Iran

Golnaz Esfandiari

( RFE/RL ) – A “highly confidential” state document leaked to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda warns that discontent is rising in Iran, with society in a “state of explosion.” The document highlights the clerical establishment’s concerns over potential social unrest due to the deteriorating economy, which has been crushed by crippling U.S. sanctions and years of […]