“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty […]
Geography Archives: Iran
Kayed al-Ghoul: Israeli Aggression on Gaza and Lebanon Likely in the Event of an Attack on Iran
Kayed al-Ghoul, a member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, says that, in the event of aggression against Iran, the Occupying Power will likely attack the Gaza Strip and Lebanon to prevent any reactions and to disarm the resistance forces. Al-Ghoul remarked in an interview televised by Al […]
Israel in OECD: Israel Set to Join Club of Richest Nations
Is Europe Planning Seal of Approval for Israeli Settlers? An exclusive club of the world’s most developed countries is poised to admit Israel as a member even though, a confidential internal document indicates, doing so will amount to endorsing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories. Israel has been told that its accession to […]
Is the Obama Administration Supporting Violent “Regime Change” in Iran?
We were in Tehran on February 24 — the day when Iranian authorities announced the capture of Abdol Malik Rigi, the head of Jundallah. Jundallah (the name in Arabic for “soldiers of God”; the group is also known as the People’s Resistance Movement of Iran) is a Sunni Islamist group that claims to be fighting […]
Clinton Strikes Out in Brazil: A Security Council Divided on Iran Sanctions
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Brasilia to mount a full court press on the Brazilian government to support a United Nations Security Council resolution imposing tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities. (Brazil is presently one of the Council’s ten non-permanent members.) And, as accumulating media reports indicate, she was politely but […]
Lula Tells Hillary Clinton Brazil Seeks Negotiated Solution to Iranian Nuclear Issue
Brasilia — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva just reiterated, in a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that Brazil will continue to maintain commercial relations with Iran and will seek a peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear issue. After meeting with Hillary Clinton at the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center, the provisional […]
Leading Iranian News Website Editors Appeal to Western Journalists
Dear Colleague, Eight months after the June 12 presidential elections in Iran, coverage by Western media like yours prompts us to pose the following questions based on common standards of journalism. 1. Most journalists who travel to Iran stay at hotels located in affluent north Tehran, but you convey their observations as “demands of the […]
An Appeal to Anti-war Organizations and Activists to Oppose the Increasing Threats against Iran
Around the world, anti-war activists are preparing for major protests this spring to oppose the continuing U.S.-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a storm of developments is dramatically increasing tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In response, the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) is issuing […]
Syria’s Strategic Ties to the Islamic Republic: Diplomacy in the Post-Iraq/Post-Peace Process Middle East
Last week, just after we had completed our regional tour to Beirut, Damascus, and Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his own journey to Damascus, for highly publicized meetings with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, HAMAS Political Bureau chief Khalid Mishal, and a “resistance” summit with Assad and Hizballah Secretary General Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah. Ahmadinejad’s trip […]
An AfPak Star over Central Asia
United States AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke enjoys a fabulous reputation, no matter the current prospects of the Afghan war. The Eurasian space knew him as a potential Nobel winner who evicted Russia from the Balkans. The world at large expects him to take over if and when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton steps down […]
The Israeli Agenda
Does Israel want another war in Lebanon and/or Gaza? Certainly, the Israeli posture toward both Lebanon and Gaza has grown increasingly provocative. Violations of Lebanese airspace by Israeli military aircraft are not new, but have increased dramatically in recent weeks. For the past several weeks, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has been warning of escalating […]
Thanks to the University of Tehran
We just returned from a trip to the Middle East, which included stops in Lebanon, Syria, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We will be writing about our meetings, discussions, and observations on this trip in future posts. First, though, we want to express our gratitude to the Faculty of World Studies at the University […]
A Dream
In a deserted place in Iran there is a stone tower, not very high, without any door or windows. In its only room (whose floor is dirt and whose shape is a circle) are a wooden table and a bench. In this circular cell, a man who looks like me is writing, in letters […]
Why Iran?
Iran continues to be the privileged member of the “Axis of Evil,” a notion formally but not really abandoned by the United States. It is accompanied by Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, in addition to North Korea, among others. Why Iran? The criteria mentioned by Hillary Clinton make no sense. Risk of possessing conditions to manufacture […]
Chutzpah, Inc.: “The Brave People of Iran” (versus the Disappeared People of Palestine, Honduras, Afghanistan, Etc.)
It is almost a commonplace, at least for the real — as opposed to the cruise-missile — left, that the flow of information, opinion, and moral indignation in the United States adapts well to the demands of state policy. If the state is hostile to Iran, even openly trying to engage in “regime change,” and […]
How Wars Are Made
In a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week, Hillary Clinton said that Iran “is moving toward a military dictatorship” and continued the Administration’s campaign for tougher sanctions against that country. What could America’s top diplomat hope to accomplish with this kind of inflammatory rhetoric? It seems unlikely that the goal was to support […]
A Dangerous Liaison: The Iranian Greens and the West
In the 1979 Revolution in Iran the liberal forces made a fatal mistake: they adopted the old dictum of the enemy of my enemy is my friend and allied themselves with just about every force that opposed the tyrannical rule of the shah. The result was helping to replace one form of despotism for another: […]
Israel Is at an Impasse: It Can Make Neither War Nor Peace
The Main Points of the Speech We reiterate on this occasion our condolences for the loss of our dear martyrs, and our congratulations as well, for they are ultimately the first victors. They are our glory and pride. I will discuss current challenges and our strategy for addressing them. When we remember these leaders and […]
“A Military Strike at Iran Would Be a Colossal Mistake”: An Interview with Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said last week that Iran’s latest statements and actions were compelling the United States “. . . and other countries” to resort to stiff sanctions. Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov said in his turn that Moscow might support sanctions but that they must be “adequate to […]
Israel’s War Drums 2010
When the ceasefire went into effect on the Lebanese-Israeli border in 2006, nobody believed — not for a moment — that this was the end of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. After all, none of Israel’s objectives were met in 2006: Israel Defense Forces’ soldiers were still held captive in Lebanon; and far from being […]
