Iran

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – AFP quotes Trump as saying at a news conference and then on Twitter: “”We don’t want hostility, but if they are hostile to us, they’re going to regret it like they’ve never regretted anything before . . . If this happens, Iran will pay a very heavy price, indeed! . […]

Donald Trump

Iran Covid-19 Deaths Rival US as Trump Blockade blocks Medical Supplies; and Europe Defies Washington

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Union has activated the Instex trading mechanism for the purpose of sending medicine and medical supplies to Iran to fight the coronavirus outbreak. Instex operates in Euros rather than dollars and avoids US banks, so that the US Treasury Department cannot claim jurisdiction over it. The Instex bank […]

Feminism

Presence-as-Resistance: Iranian Women and the Politics of Social Contestation

Navid Pourmokhtari

The history of everyday public resistance on the part of women’s movements in Iran

Epidemics

Coronavirus Solidarity: A 13th Century Mystical Persian Poem about Humanity Shows why We need a Global Response

The Conversation

By Arshin Adib-Moghaddam | – Coronavirus is all about human connectivity. From a philosophical perspective, I’ve been thinking about how this virus is forcing us to confront our common fate, highlighting our connections in the process. The novel coronavirus defies geography and national borders. There is no escaping it – exactly because humanity is inevitably […]

Donald Trump

In a Plague Year, Trump Ratchets up Tensions with Iran and Iraq

Reese Erlich

San Francisco (Foreign Correspondent) – While the world focuses on the coronavirus pandemic, tensions between the US and Iran are heating up. The two countries are engaging in tit-for-tat military attacks that threaten a wider war. In mid-March, Washington officials accused an Iran-allied militia of launching rockets at a US military base in Iraq, killing […]

Donald Trump

Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei Pulls a Trump on Coronavirus: Denies Own Responsibility, Blames a Foreign Country (US)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump and his cronies in the GOP got high-level, frantic briefings from US intelligence in January and February that the coronavirus would produce a major pandemic and send the US economy into a tailspin. That would have been the time to order test kits (rather than having Jared Kushner futz […]

Donald Trump

Trump Spared Iran from Bombing, but his Sanctions Fed Pandemic in which 1 dies every 10 Minutes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Kristen Welker at NBC News report that Trump refused to bomb Iran last weekend for fear it would be a public relations disaster given international sympathy for that country’s coronavirus plight. It appears that some officials had considered bombing Iran in response to Shiite […]

Epidemics

To Help Stem Coronavirus, Lift the Sanctions on Iran

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Ariel Gold and Medea Benjamin, March 13, 2020. (Foreign Policy in Focus) – U.S. sanctions have gutted Iran’s economy and health system. In a pandemic, that’s a global public health threat. The COVID-19, or coronavirus, pandemic is far from the first proof of how intertwined we are as a global community. The climate crisis […]

Epidemics

Accusing US of “Medical Terrorism,” Iran Demands Trump Lift Economic Blockade amid Coronavirus

Common Dreams

By Jake Johnson, staff writer | – (Commondreams.org) – Facing a humanitarian crisis with at least 9,000 coronavirus cases nationwide and a death toll of more than 350 people, Iranian officials on Wednesday demanded that the U.S. lift crippling … sanctions that Tehran says have hindered the government’s ability to respond effectively to the outbreak. […]