Published in the National Every time former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif appears on television, it’s fair to expect some drama or controversy. Such is the nature of the combative career diplomat. Mr Zarif, who has been tasked with picking cabinet ministers for President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian’s incoming administration, ruffled many feathers last week when …
Published in the Forward If you want to know why so many ordinary people feel cynical about politicians, go no further than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Wednesday address to the U.S. Congress, the fourth in his lifetime. It was a rambling repetition of his familiar themes, particularly that of Israel and the U.S. standing as …
Published in the Atlantic Ask most Americans what DSA stands for and they are unlikely to know the Democratic Socialists of America, the country’s largest leftist organization, with about 92,000 members. But ask about AOC and they are likely to be familiar with DSA’s most famous member: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Bronx-born socialist firebrand known for her fierce advocacy …
Published in the Liberties We tell ourselves myths in order to live with ourselves. Historians have the unpleasant responsibility of making that a little more difficult for us than it would otherwise be. This is a story about such a myth, and about the truth it obscures. Guatemala was not a country at peace in …
Published in the Atlantic Iran has taken a turn that hardly anyone could have seen coming a few short months ago. For years, Iran’s reformist faction has languished in the political wilderness, banished there by hard-liners more aligned with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and by a disillusioned electorate convinced that its votes did not matter. …
Published in Majalla Earlier this year, Iran was headed to its scheduled parliamentary elections. As has become common in recent years, the elections were severely restricted. Under the Islamic Republic, polls have never been free and fair, and a vetting body called the Guardian Council, whose members give their primary fealty to Supreme Leader Ayatollah …
Published in the Atlantic Since the death in May of President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran has been in the throes of a surprise electoral contest. Not for the first time, one of the loudest campaigns has belonged not to any of the candidates, but to opponents of the regime who advocate boycotting the vote. Among those …
Published in the National Iranian hardliners, known for their devotion to the Islamic Republic and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sometimes like to accuse their opponents of being modelled after westerners. But last week, it was a hardliner presidential candidate, who on a televised debate, praised a European head of government and called for …
Published in the Atlantic A specter is haunting Iran’s presidential election—the specter of Donald Trump’s return to office. Although Trump has been out of the White House for more than three years, he seems to come up more than Joe Biden, and more than other foreign politicians, in debates among the six candidates in the …
Published in Al Majalla When a country’s head of government dies in a dramatic helicopter crash, one naturally expects a bit of shock and changes to the schedule. Yet nothing, it seems, can stop the bureaucratic clock of the Islamic Republic. On 21 May, Iran’s Assembly of Experts began its meeting as scheduled, but in …