Iran Liberalism

This is a 70-year history: the U.S. cracks down and the pro-democracy movements are crushed, every time.Quds Day rally, Parade of military forces, along with photographs of Qasem Soleimani, Iran Tehran, May 31, 2019. Read More

The coronavirus has hit Iran hard. As the country grapples with the highest mortality rate from COVID-19 across the Middle East, the Trump administration has faced widespread calls to ease U.S. sanctions on Iran. The strict bilateral sanctions, which the Trump administration has reimposed since the U.S. withdrawal from the…

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the regime must take advantage of the coronavirus outbreak. He simply meant to use this tragedy to salvage the regime from the deadly trap in which it is caught. After the mid-November uprisings, when more than 1,500 young, unarmed rebels were killed,…

The current quarantine is nothing new for Iranian women musicians — they've been restricted from performing in public since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Singer Massy Ahadi explains how they come to terms with it. "We haven't left the house for two months," says Massy Ahadi. "I miss the exchange and…

Throughout its tumultuous four decades of rule, the Islamic Republic has shown remarkable longevity, despite regular predictions of its im- pending demise. However, the fact that it has largely failed to deliver on the promises of the 1979 revolution, above all democracy and social justice, continues to haunt its present…

Tensions between Washington and Tehran flared up again on Wednesday as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is on the US foreign terrorist list, launched a satellite. This launch could be the start of the Regime’s long-range missile program. This week 11 armed speedboats of IRGC in the Persian…

A group of fifty experts and former officials signed a letter on Thursday asking U.S. President Donald Trump to “double down” on economic sanctions against Iran. European diplomats and U.S. lawmakers have criticized sanctions for hindering Iran’s ability to fight the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, and Iran is now…

Originally appeared at The American Conservative. The Edelman/Takeyh article on Iran had so many bad ideas in it that it will take a second post to respond properly to some of the rest. One of the sillier claims that they make is that regime collapse won’t cause Iran to become…

The coronavirus challenge—the pandemic itself and the resultant economic shock—puts a stress test on individuals, societies, countries, alliances, and the international system—and precedents are sobering. The infection curve may be starting to bend, but economic shock and political dysfunction may lead to a global Great Depression. Last time the world…

When I was a young student, I was astonished by the Iranian regime's insistence on going to war against Iraq. That war killed over a million Iranians, injured another 2 million, and cost the country over a trillion dollars. Former Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said in a…