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The Bureaucracy of Killing in Iran, and Orientalism
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The news is horrifying for all of us. Not only because of the people who have been killed, but because of the shape of death itself. Seeing the bodies of hundreds of people in black bags. Seeing death being “processed” like an administrative file. Like a queue. Like an invoice. In the middle of…
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Iran: When Politics Becomes a Black Market
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In a non-democratic society like Iran, the rise of a war-hungry far right is not a cultural accident. It’s the direct outcome of a system of governance designed to block ordinary, collective routes to change. When there are no independent unions, no real political parties, no free media, and no genuine right to assemble,…
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The West’s Favorite Fantasy: A “Responsible” Islamic Republic
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It looks like Trump’s view of Iran’s fascist state and a big chunk of the Western Left’s view have basically converged, because they’ve landed in the same ugly place: treating the Islamic Republic as a legitimate adult in the room, and Iranians as background noise. Trump is out here thanking a fascist regime for…
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Beyond the Headlines: Why Iran’s Protest Wave Can’t Be Reduced to One Name
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As Iran’s new wave of nationwide protests enters its twelfth day, and reports of a sweeping internet blackout continue to emerge, an old question has returned to the center of political debate with renewed urgency: are political figures leading the streets, or are they trying to catch up with a movement already in motion?…
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Council of the Left: An Iranian Experiment
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On 10 January 2026, a cluster of Iranian Marxist parties and organizations will gather in Stockholm under the banner of the “Council for Cooperation of Left and Communist Forces.” On paper it’s just another exile conference. In reality, it’s a rare attempt to weld together fragments of a socialist left that has been scattered…
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The War on Minds: Inside Regime’s Coordinated Arrests of Left Scholars
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In the past 24 hours, security forces carried out coordinated raids on the homes of several left-wing researchers and translators in Tehran, arresting Parviz Sedaghat, Mahsa Asadollahnejad, and Shirin Karimi. They confiscated the belongings of Mohammad Maljoo and summoned him for questioning; the home of Heiman Rahimi was also searched, and he, too, was…
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Political Maturity in an Age of Binaries
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Ignorance is not harmless once it walks into the street. I learned that in 2004, watching Iranian football fans do a Nazi salute to German players, not out of ideology but out of emptiness — no history, no memory, no sense of what that gesture meant. Today I see a similar emptiness in parts…
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Panahi’s Cinema and the Art of Smuggling Truth
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At an event held in honor of courageous, resilient cinema, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and legendary director Martin Scorsese sat down for a deep conversation about obstacles, inspirations, and the power of film under extreme restrictions. The talk, in New York, gave Panahi space to speak about the roots of his passion and how…
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Iran’s New ‘Hijab Situation Room’ and the Failure of Control
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On Friday, October 17, 2025, the secretary of Tehran province’s “Enjoining Good & Forbidding Wrong” headquarters, announced a new “Situation Room for Chastity & Hijab,” alongside the organization and activation of “more than 80,000 trained volunteers” plus 4,575 trainers and judicial auxiliaries (“zabet-e qazaei”). Officials framed it as a cultural-social campaign run with “cultural…
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How Taghvai’s Cinema Teaches Us to Replace Paranoia with Practice
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Nasser Taghvai, a renowned Iranian filmmaker and creator of enduring works, who for years resisted censorship and chose seclusion rather than making films under official policies, has passed away at 84. He was a pioneer of the Iranian New Wave and, at the same time, widely known to the public for his popular works.…
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Iran: CFT, FATF, and the Politics of Credible Execution
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At its session on October 1, 2025, the Expediency Council approved Iran’s “conditional accession” to the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (CFT). According to the Council’s spokesperson, this approval will be interpreted “within the framework of the Constitution and domestic laws.” Domestic and international media described the move as a…
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UN Snapback on Iran: The Profiteers’ Economy vs. Public Welfare
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Sanctions are never just “sender vs. target.” They create corridors—ship-to-ship transfers, free-trade zones, real-estate havens—where sanctioned oil turns into offshore balances while basic goods at home get pricier. Unless diplomacy plus domestic rule-of-law closes these corridors, the profiteer economy outlives the sanctions and workers keep paying through prices, unsafe jobs, and repression. (This is…