Current Analysis Report from Iran International press reports have not done justice to the complexity of recent dramatic events in Iran. What began as a genuine, spontaneous student uprising in defense of press freedoms and political reforms has now been appropriated by extremist religious paramilitaries and vigilantes aiming to dis MERIP's Special Correspondent in Iran • 4 min read
MER Article From Revolution to Revelation The revelations came on a January evening and were reminiscent of the days when the Shah’s Savak hit squads ruled Iran. Renegade agents within the country’s secretive Intelligence Ministry admitted to killing secularist writers and politicians they considered enemies of the Islamic state. For weeks, Geneive Abdo • 8 min read
MER Article Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran Parvenu Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). This book argues that in neither the Pahlavi nor the Islamic eras have Iranian women enjoyed direct and independent control over the establishment of gender policies. “By destroyi Shiva Balaghi • 1 min read
MER Article Labor and the Challenge of Economic Restructuring in Iran During the last 20 years, the Iranian economy has had to adjust to a revolution, an eight-year war with Iraq, economic isolation and the collapse of its oil revenues. As a result, Iran witnessed the complete undoing of its gains in per capita income from the boom years of the 1970s. The generation o Djavad Salehi-Isfahani • 12 min read
MER Article The Containment Myth Among those who direct American foreign policy, there is near unanimity that the collapse of communism represents a kind of zero hour. The end of the Cold War so transformed the geopolitical landscape as to render the present era historically discontinuous from the epoch that preceded it. Policy mak Stephen Hubbell • 11 min read
MER Article Tensions in Iran The May 1997 election of Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran was a watershed event in the history of the almost 20-year-old Islamic Revolution. While the current on-the-ground situation in Iran remains confusing, it is not for lack of information. During the last year, the press has blossomed with Olivier Roy • 12 min read
MER Article Women and Personal Status Law in Iran Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, personal status law -- governing marriage, divorce and custody -- has become one of the most politically salient issues in Iranian society. Within weeks of the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the Justice Ministry was notified to cancel all laws that were deemed contradictory to Homa Hoodfar • 8 min read
MER Article Iran and the Virtual Reality of US War Games The year is 2002. Saddam Hussein has been assassinated, and Shi‘i forces in Basra have declared their independence from Baghdad. Iran, the dominant regional power, invades Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to gain regional hegemony, control the price of oil, finance its military buildup “and ameliorate its so William M. Arkin • 9 min read
MER Article Ideology and Revolution in Iran Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993). Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1993). John Foran, Fragile Resistance: Soci Misagh Parsa • 7 min read
MER Article "Tilt but Don't Spill" “Kaj dar-o mariz” (the jar is tilted but not spilled) describes how the Islamic Republic came stumbling through its first decade. Unlike Iraq, Iran fought the war between them entirely on its own resources, which enabled the state to maintain a sense of achievement and independence. [1] However, with Kaveh Ehsani • 16 min read
MER Article Squatters and the State The early 1990s saw a period of renewed urban popular uprisings in Iran, unprecedented since the 1979 revolution. From August 1991 to August 1994, six major upheavals took place in Tehran, Shiraz, Arak, Mashhad, Ghazvin and Tabriz, and there were frequent minor clashes in many other urban centers. M Asef Bayat • 14 min read
MER Article An Open Letter to a Jailed Iranian Writer Dear Dr. Saidi Sirjani: For almost 20 years now, I have known and admired you and your writings. Whatever your detractors may say, Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani cannot justly be accused of partisanship. I have known you as a fierce critic of Mohammad Reza Shah’s insufferable pretensions and intolerance o Andrew Whitley • 3 min read
