Iran

Discussions of Iran’s Nuclear Enrichment ignore Israel’s Atom Bomb Arsenal: What if Iran’s Program is a Deterrent to War?

Mt. Berry, Ga. (Special to Informed Comment) – According to the latest news coverage, Iran-U.S. negotiations to revive the 2015 JCPOA are in trouble. The main sticking points involve a guarantee demanded by Tehran that Washington will not abandon the deal at some future date as it did in 2018 under the previous administration and […]

Dissent

Iran: Deadly Repression of Khuzestan Protests: Hundreds Arrested; At Least 9 Deaths, Including a Child (HRW)

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch) – (Beirut) – The rising death toll and mass arrests raise grave concerns about the Iranian authorities’ response to recent protests in Khuzestan and other provinces, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately and unconditionally release peaceful protesters, provide information about deaths, and allow an independent international investigation into […]

Dissent

‘Hopeless And Dissatisfied’: Growing Anger At Iranian Officials As Khuzestan Water Protests Spread

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Golnaz Esfandiari and Mohammad Zarghami | – ( RFE/RL) – Analysts say economic desperation and growing frustration in Iranian society have led to angry demonstrations around the country that began with people protesting water shortages in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. “If the society wasn’t hopeless, it wouldn’t take to the streets. It wouldn’t […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis Grips Iran with Water Shortages, Provoking Protests, Clashes in Southwest

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan region, the center of its petroleum industry, has been wracked with protests for a week, in part over water shortages. Rallies have erupted in the towns of Mahshahr, Izeh, Ahvaz, Kut-e Abdollah, Susangerd, Aligoudarz and Shoushtar, according to Amnesty International The Iranian government has sometimes replied to […]

Featured

Iran opens new Oil Port on Gulf of Oman to avoid narrow Straits of Hormuz and to Avoid US Sanctions

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – According to Al Jazeera, on Thursday, Iran announced the opening of a new petroleum export terminal near the port of Jask on the Gulf of Oman, which will allow its vessels to avoid what Iranians refer to as the Persian Gulf and its narrow outlet, the Strait of Hormuz. Although […]

Iran

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Muslim Secularism: A conversation with Juan Cole (Ta’seel)

Juan Cole

Juan Cole in conversation with Ta’seel Commons: “’To read Juan Cole’s deft, plain-spoken translation of the Rubáiyát is to find companionship, to rejoin a thousand-year human conversation about how to endure, enjoy, and find a fleeting beauty in everlastingly dire times. The lucid, cogent and mind-opening Epilogue is a kind of grace, a gift freely […]

Donald Trump

Did Netanyahu Try to get Trump to Wag the Dog with Strike on Iran after Biden Won?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Susan B. Glasser reports at The New Yorker that after it became clear that Joe Biden had won the presidency, from November 7, lame duck Donald Trump desperately wanted to hold on to his office and contemplated a strike on Iran to bolster his position. Glasser writes that “the subject […]

Iran

America’s Afghan War Is Over, So What About Iraq – and Iran?

Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold

( Code Pink) – At Bagram air-base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of U.S. military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last U.S. forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. The Taliban […]

Iran

Iranian Voters sent a Message to Iran’s Leaders with Dismal Turnout For Presidential Election

Golnaz Esfandiari

( RFE/RL) – The Iranian leadership has a problem: a record number of voters — more than half of them — turned their back on the presidential election by not taking part in the vote. Official turnout in the June 18 election was 48.8 percent, the lowest ever registered in the Islamic republic, which was […]