Geography Archives: Iran

“‘Today?’ asked the younger cook, as he placed a very large skewer on the charcoal.  ‘Is anyone supposed to come out today?’  ‘Yes,’ I said after a short pause, pretending not to be that interested.  ‘It’s the seventh day of mourning for the people who died last week.’  The young man rolled his eyes, the […]

Which way to look?  So much was happening inside and outside Germany!  Most dramatic were the revolutionary events on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.  Aside from amazement that those decade-long dictators could be forced out by the will of the people, there were some worries among sun-seeking German vacationers who annually flee the icy […]

  Patty Culhane: Now that shots have been fired in the name of Bahrain’s government, a key ally to the US and home to the strategically critical US Navy base, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to be showing some support for the Bahraini government’s position. . . . Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute: Not […]

On 22 Bahman 1389 (11 February 2011), the 32nd anniversary of the victory of the revolution in Iran, hard-line women heckle Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the right-hand man of the president of Iran.  The hecklers are heard shouting: “Down with monafeq!  Monafeq, get lost!”  “Mashaei, be ashamed!  Resign from the government!”  “Down with the anti-velayat-e faqih.”  […]

7 February 2011 . . . Today we declare our solidarity.  One of the forms of our solidarity is to defend this revolution, this intifada, this great historic popular movement.  One of the responsibilities of defending this revolution is to reveal its true image as all data indicate. . . .  We contact those on […]

  What explains the diametrically opposed stances of the imperialist powers and corporate media: promoting regime change in Iran while endeavoring to preserve the fundamentals of the regimes, with or without modification, in Egypt and Tunisia?  In part, the increasingly anachronistic legacy of the policy and ideology about Israel developed in the wake of the […]

In 2002 Iran was added to the neoconservative-designed ‘Axis of Evil’ and thus declared ripe for US military intervention. The threat of war in the ‘greatest crisis of modern times’ (John Pilger in the New Statesman, July 12, 2007) was at its height in 2006-2007.  With President Obama assuming office in 2009, a great hope […]

Vijay Prashad is a prominent Marxist scholar from South Asia.  He is George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College, Connecticut.  He has written extensively on international affairs for both academic and popular journals.  His most recent book The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the […]

Mohammed Ezzeldin: We have two main scenarios now regarding the relation between the people and the army.  We have the Tunisian scenario.  There’s a division in the ruling elites, there is division in the regime, so the army will be neutral: the tanks and soldiers and officers in the streets, they are just maintaining the […]

America’s international standing is under mounting strain on multiple fronts.  Nowhere is this more glaring than in the Middle East, where the balance of influence (and hence power) is shifting away from the United States and toward Iran, Turkey, and their allies.  This trend may, in fact, accelerate as a consequence of ongoing unrest in […]

Predictably, the Istanbul talks have ended without positive results.  And, it seems clear that the discussion came to a dead end over two issues: the Islamic Republic wanted explicit recognition of its right to enrich uranium which the United States (at least) was not prepared to do; and the United States proposed a plan for […]

14 January 2011 Where are the ‘democracy promoters’ on the Tunisian uprising?, asks Marc Lynch.  It’s a fair question: Thus far, a month into the massive demonstrations rocking Tunisia, the Washington Post editorial page has published exactly zero editorials about Tunisia.  For that matter, the Weekly Standard, another magazine which frequently claims the mantle of […]

The discussion of violent and paranoid rhetoric in the media is long overdue, whether or not it is ever determined that accused Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner was somehow influenced or motivated by such rhetoric.  Before the shooting, there had been a remarkable surge of politically motivated violence (FAIR Blog, 1/12/11).  Despite media efforts to […]

Over the last few weeks, some senior figures in Israel’s national security establishment have made — in an Israeli context — relatively moderate statements about their perception of the Iranian “threat” to their country.  Last month, Deputy Prime Minister (and former IDF chief of staff) Moshe Yaalon said that, because of technical difficulties and the […]

In a Reflection published on August 25, 2010 under the title of “The Opinion of an Expert”, I mentioned a really unusual activity of the United States and its allies which, in my opinion, underlines the risk of a nuclear conflict with Iran. I was referring to a long article by the well-known journalist Jeffrey […]

The first issue of The Weekly Standard for 2011 includes an article by Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz, entitled “The Logic of Our Iran Sanctions: Accelerate Them Now.”  Gerecht and Dubowitz are both affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and are prominent voices in neoconservative circles focused on Iran.  We highlight their […]

The long awaited liberalization of energy commodities in Iran has finally begun.  President Ahmadinejad stated: “At this stage, we don’t want to free prices, rather we are going to regulate and reform them.”  How regulated will this new system be? Iranians with private cars get a monthly ration of about one full Iranian tank of […]

When discussing the current state of Iran’s economy, commentators, activists, politicians, and the U.S. government all seem to agree on the massive role played by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).  Stanford University Professor Abbas Milani told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C. in June 2010 that this “military junta” controls “minimally […]

Tehran, December 19, 2010. On what he called “the historic economic night,” President Ahmadinejad appeared on Iranian television to announce the imminent launch of the subsidy reform law, starting with energy prices at midnight (see below for new prices).  He produced an impressive array of facts and figures from memory, hoping to calm fears about […]

Phases of Imperialism Lenin dated the imperialist phase of capitalism, which he associated with monopoly capitalism, from the beginning of the twentieth century, when the process of centralization of capital had led to the emergence of monopoly in industry and among banks.  The coming together (coalescence) of the capitals in these two spheres led to […]