Iran

Tehran (AFP) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rejected Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s resignation on Wednesday, saying the departure of the public face of the Islamic republic’s detente with the West would be against its best interests. Zarif’s abrupt announcement on Instagram late on Monday that he was quitting had sparked rumours of mass resignations in […]

Featured

A Victim of Trump? Iran’s Centrist Foreign Minister Mysteriously Forced Out

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif resigned via Instagram on Monday, apologizing for his inability to continue in office and for any shortcomings in his past service to the nation. A member of parliament said that Zarif had submitted letters of resignation to President Hassan Rouhani on several occasions but […]

Iran

Khamenei hails Assad in Tehran as Key to “Resistance” to US

AFP

Tehran (AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Monday on his first visit to the Islamic republic since the start of the Syrian conflict. During the meeting, Assad expressed his gratitude to Iran for all that it has done for Syria during the conflict, according to the Syrian presidency’s […]

Iran

40 Years after the Iranian Revolution, Can the Opposition Still Hope for Change?

The Conversation

By Naser Ghobadzadeh | – Iran’s ruling clergy are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1979 revolution, during which Shi’ite Islamists, led by religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini, toppled Mohammad Reza Shah’s secular monarchy. The linchpin of the Islamic Republic’s political system is Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrine of Wilayat-i Faqih, or guardianship of the jurist, which makes […]

Featured

Trump’s Attempt to Strongarm Europe on Iran Crashes and Burns

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – France24 reports that Trump’s attempt to dissuade the Europeans from continuing their support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal has backfired. On Friday at a Munich security meeting, Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, replied to the chiding of Vice President Mike Pence that Iran is destabilizing the region. Maas remarked […]

Human Rights

Iran’s Bizarre Prosecution and Torture of . . . Environmentalists?

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch (Beirut) – Iran’s judicial authorities are violating fair trial standards in the case of eight environmentalists who have been detained for over a year, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities should immediately open an impartial and transparent investigation into the torture allegations the accused have raised during the trial. On January 30, […]

Featured

Iran: ‘If US attacks us, Tel Aviv is Toast;’ Israel: ‘You do that and Iran is Toast’

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Aftab reports that the head of the political bureau of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, and a liaison to clerical Leader Ali Khamenei, Brig.-Gen. Yadollah Javani, gave a speech Monday in which he said that Iran has nothing to fear from the United States. He also said that that last […]

Iran

How Iran’s Islamic Revolution is still Shaping the Middle East

AFP

By Kay Armin Serjoie and Marc Jourdier | – Tehran (AFP) – The victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran was an earthquake that upended the political order in the Middle East, and the aftershocks are still being felt 40 years later. When Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the shah’s last government in February […]

Featured

Iran’s Khamenei: ‘Death to America’ means US Rulers, not American Public

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The clerical Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, said Friday on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, that Iran has good relations with all the countries of the world. He observed that he does not urge breaking relations with any European country. “The slogan ‘Death to America,’” he said, […]