via Lobe Log
by Farideh Farhi
I read with great interest the writing of Washington’s new Iran expert, Dennis Ross. With a title like “Don’t Discount the Iranian Election”, I thought, wow! Iran’s contested and improvised politics are finally being taken seriously. What else could that mean other than an acknowledgment that [...]
by Shireen T. Hunter
Following debate in Iran ahead of its June 14 presidential election is like watching a movie by Luis Bunuel — think the Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie — or looking at a painting by Salvador Dali; everything opposes reality.
Indeed, while the candidates of various political stripes vigorously and energetically discuss [...]
by Alireza Nader
via USIP
Iranian politics are personal. Indeed, the theocrats are decidedly earthly in their rivalries. But the 2013 election is particularly telling. It may be settling a score dating back a quarter century between the revolution’s two most enduring politicos—Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former President [...]
by Kevan Harris
Sociologists sometimes get lucky. In June 2009 I arrived in Tehran for a routine research trip. Over the next several months I witnessed the largest political demonstrations in Iran since 1979. Arising from protests against the results of the June presidential election, which were perceived by many Iranians as fraudulent, these marches [...]
via Lobe Log
by Omid Memarian
Traditionally, a few months before a presidential election in Iran, the government opens the public sphere, giving more freedom to the press, more space for activists to speak out and even loosening social restrictions like the one on women’s clothing and hijab. But less than two months before [...]
by Reza Akhlaghi
via Foreign Policy Association
With less than two months into the elections, what is your assessment of this year’s election dynamics and of the absence of key presidential contenders in the country’s faction-based political system?
In the upcoming elections, there is no sitting president running for re-election. So lack [...]
by Gareth Porter
via IPS News
A review of Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett’s “Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran” (Metropolitan Books, 2013)
“Going to Tehran” arguably represents the most important work on the subject of U.S.-Iran relations to be published thus [...]
via Lobe Log
Sociologists sometimes get lucky. In June 2009 I arrived in Tehran for a routine research trip. Over the next several months I witnessed the largest political demonstrations in Iran since 1979. Arising from protests against the results of the June presidential election, which were perceived by many Iranians as fraudulent, these [...]
via Lobe Log
For Iran, 2012 will go down as the year of economic woes. The mantra of the “enemy’s psychological war against Iran” will no longer be blamed more than internal mismanagement even by the most ardent supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Leader, Ali Khamenei. The “resistance economy” against the “economic war [...]
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Iranian Elections: Netanyahu, Neoconservatives Are the Big Losers
via LobeLog
by Mitchell Plitnick
Outside of Iran, there is no doubt that the biggest losers in Iran’s election this past weekend were the Likud government in Israel and its supporters, especially neoconservatives, in the United States.
The response of Israel’s Prime Minister to the election of centrist candidate Hassan Rouhani as [...]