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Writings

  • Iran’s Leaders Mostly Want a Deal

    Published by the Atlantic According to the Trump administration’s latest messaging, talks between the United States and Iran are deadlocked because of infighting in Tehran. The military hard-liners of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps must be stopping the civilian diplomats from making a deal. Or, to put it in President Trump’s words, “Iran is having…

  • Is a Militia Running Wartime Iran?

    Published by The Dispatch If you know a little bit about Iran, you’ve probably heard of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A militia founded shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, it has mushroomed to a mammoth force of economic, political, and military power within the country. Many informed observers of Iran have long predicted…

  • Shia Islam Without Ali Khamenei

    Published by The Dispatch The assassination of Ali Khamenei by the United States and Israel wasn’t just a massive event in modern history of Iran. It was also a massive event in the history of Shia Islam.  Sitting atop Iran’s strange political system, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei was both the head of state of the world’s…

  • The ‘Existential Anxiety’ of the Islamic Republic

    Published by the Atlantic Killing thousands of protesters last month was apparently not enough for the Islamic Republic, which followed up by arresting prominent internal critics, too. The Iranian regime wouldn’t have gone after these figures if it didn’t fear them—perhaps even as much as it fears the royalist movement that has surged around former…

  • What Iran’s Dead Loved and Fought For

    Published by the Atlantic On January 2, Raha Bahloulipour watched Sentimental Value, the latest film by the Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier, in her dorm room at the University of Tehran. It was the first film she viewed in 2026, and she liked it very much. I know this because Raha was, like myself, an avid user of the…

  • What Iranians Want From Trump

    Published by the Atlantic When Shahrzad went to demonstrate in the streets of Tehran on January 2, she was buoyed by one fact: The day before, President Trump had promised that if Iran killed protesters, “the United States of America will come to their rescue.” “We were all so hopeful,” the 29-year-old woman, who left…

  • The Islamic Republic Will Not Last

    Published by the Atlantic Under the cover of a total internet shutdown that has now lasted more than 100 hours, Iran’s security forces have unleashed bone-chilling brutality on protesters, killing at least 2,000 people, according to Iranian officials. Rather than hiding its crimes, the regime has broadcast footage from a morgue on state television. Corpses overflowed…

  • Change May Be Coming to Iran

    Published by the Atlantic Few world capitals have been as shaken by the dramatic ouster of Nicolás Maduro as faraway Tehran. Anti-Americanism has united Iran and Venezuela in a tight alliance for more than two decades. As recently as 2022, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei welcomed Maduro to Tehran, praising the Venezuelan strongman’s “resistance” against America…

  • Iranians Have Had Enough

    Published by the Atlantic A wave of protests started by shopkeepers swept through Tehran in December. Iranians have had such a terrible year—facing such a decline in living standards and such a sense of political impasse—that no one was terribly surprised when demonstrations filled the streets. I asked one Iranian student why she had taken…

  • ‘Nobody Knows What to Do About the Future’

    Published by the Atlantic At the end of November, two aging clerics gave speeches in Tehran reflecting on the lessons to be drawn from the summer’s Israeli and American strikes on their country. The contrast between the men’s visions shows just what sort of pickle Iran now finds itself in. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared total…

  • Horrible and Devastating—And Worse, Not Shocking

    Published by the Atlantic Lynda Ben-Menashe, the president of the National Council of Jewish Women Australia, expressed an apt sentiment after yesterday’s terror attack at Bondi Beach: She said that she was “horrified and devastated” but, she added, “not shocked.” Indeed, how could anyone be shocked? The act of terrorism, in which a father-and-son duo…

  • Why the Cinnabon Story Doesn’t Make Me Happy

    Published by the Atlantic Crystal Wilsey, a cashier at a Cinnabon franchise in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, said some unforgivable things to a Somali couple who had the temerity to request more caramel on a pecan cinnamon roll. But I don’t think she should have been summarily fired. Wilsey’s is just the latest high-profile tale of an…

  • The Star Who Represents Iran’s Golden Age—And Its Future

    Published by the Atlantic Publicity material for Googoosh: A Sinful Voice, a new memoir by the Iranian singer in exile, calls her a predecessor to Beyoncé and Madonna—a comparison that might seem over-the-top to American readers but in fact sells her short. Googoosh, born Faegheh Atashin, is indeed the greatest pop star in Iranian history, but for…

  • The Battle Iranian Women Are Winning

    Published by the Atlantic On a busy sidewalk outside a café, a group of young people, many of them women, bob their heads to the beat of “Seven Nation Army,”by the White Stripes. Huddled around a live band, some shake their hair while others rhythmically swing. The scene wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in most cities. But a…

  • What an Iranian Filmmaker Learned In Prison

    Published by the Atlantic For more than a decade, after the government of Iran deemed his work “propaganda against the system,” the filmmaker Jafar Panahi was banned from making films or leaving the country. He spent some of that time in prison and under house arrest, but he still found ways to produce art—including the…

  • Anything Could Happen in Iran

    Co-written with Graeme Wood for the Atlantic Four months ago, Israel bombed Iran for 12 days, in a campaign whose grand finale was the apparent destruction of three Iranian nuclear facilities in strikes by the United States. Last week, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany decided that bombing was not enough. They triggered the United…

  • How Not to Get a Progressive Party off the Ground

    Published by the Atlantic In early September, Zarah Sultana made a bold announcement. “Labour is dead,” the 31-year-old socialist member of Parliament told a crowd of hundreds gathered in Newcastle. She had left Britain’s ruling party only in July, pledging to “co-lead” a new left-wing party with Jeremy Corbyn, a former Labour leader who was…

  • Understanding Zionism

    Published by the Atlantic One summer in Brooklyn, a controversy broke out in my dog-park group chat. Dedicated to the upkeep of the park and welfare of our canines, our chat had never indulged in politics before. But someone was now complaining that a dog-insurance company was “Zionist,” and a passionate debate ensued. This American-based…

  • Why Iran Hit Australia

    Published by the Atlantic Australia is not known for picking fights. It prioritizes trade and has diplomatic relations with almost every country in the world—even the reclusive North Korea. But on Tuesday, it did something it hadn’t done since World War II: It expelled an ambassador. Shutting down the Iranian embassy, the Australian government declared…

  • The Real Reason American Socialists Don’t Win

    Published by the Atlantic If Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, wins this fall’s election, he will occupy the most powerful executive position of any American socialist. At the moment, the closest contenders are two mayors in California and a county executive in Maryland. No wonder, then, that American socialists…