Iran

By Kian Sharifi ( RFE/RL ) – Iran is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world. But restrictions imposed by the United States have largely failed to stymie Iran’s oil exports, the backbone of its flailing economy. U.S. sanctions have cut off Iran from most of its traditional customers, forcing Tehran to find […]

Donald Trump

Trump blew up the Iran Nuclear Deal, unleashing Tehran — Can Biden Fix it?

Bob Dreyfuss

By Bob Dreyfuss ( Tomdispatch.com ) – 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 Iranian general visiting Iraq, dramatically raising tensions in the region. The other is a traditional advocate of American […]

Featured

Is Washington’s Defense of Israel’s War destroying the Edifice of the Liberal International Order?

Ali Abootalebi

Eau Clare, Wi. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – We are in an age of firsts. The October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel set off a conflict in which non-state actors have played an unprecedented role. In the aftermath, Israel replied with massively disproportionate force, such that its actions have been found plausibly to […]

Featured

Red Lines and Rockets: Reframing the War on Gaza

Jennifer Loewenstein

Madison, Wisconsin (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Barely a day after Iran fired drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles westward across the desert skies towards Israel, in response to Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Hossein Salami, issued the following statement: “From now on, if Israel attacks Iranian […]

Iran

Israel’s Limited Attack on Iran Appears Aimed at De-Escalating Conflict

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Kian Sharifi ( RFE/RL ) – Israel had vowed to make Iran pay for Tehran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on April 13. But Israel’s suspected military response early on April 19 appeared to be limited in scale and scope and aimed at de-escalating tensions with Iran. Tehran said it shot down three quadcopter […]

Featured

Israel and Iran: Itching for War, Playing with Fire

Fariba Amini

Newark, Delaware (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long wanted war with Iran and has all along been trying to get the U.S. involved, under different U.S. administrations. On Friday morning, Israel launched missile strikes on military bases near the Iranian city of Isfahan. A desperate Netanyahu, seeing Western […]

Iran

Shadow War no more: With Direct Warfare between Israel and Iran, is there any going Back?

The Conversation

By Javed Ali, University of Michigan | – For decades, Iran and Israel have been engaged in a “shadow war.” Falling short of direct military confrontation, this conflict has been characterized by war through other means – through proxies, cyber attacks, economic sanctions and fiery rhetoric. Events over the last few weeks in the Middle […]

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Netanyahu, Empowered by Biden’s Grant of Impunity, baits Iran into his genocidal Gaza War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Despite all the hype about Iran’s largely symbolic barrage of over 200 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles, unleashed on the thinly populated Negev Desert (where it was mainly Palestinian Bedouins who were put in danger), the military significance of this action was minimal. An Israeli base was hit at […]

Central Intelligence Agency

The Origins of the West’s Iran Crisis: Oil, Autocracy and Coup

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of David S. Painter and Gregory Brew, The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951–1954. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The figure of Mohammad Mosaddeq, Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, is an uncomfortable one for both sides […]