Covid-19 Coverage

Voices from the Middle East: US Sanctions on Iran Devastate the Health Sector

US sanctions against Iran, along with Iranian government policies, have created insurmountable obstacles for domestic drug manufacturers who are struggling to provide people with the health care they need, especially now as COVID-19 ravages Iran. An Iranian pharmaceutical company employee explains w

Kaveh Ehsani • 4 min read

Current Analysis

The Making of a "Resistance Parliament" in Iran and the Challenges Ahead

Iran's parliamentary elections in February handed the conservative supporters of the Supreme Leader a major victory. Abedini and Armin explain how and lay out why the regime is poorly positioned to deal with popular discontent, crushing US sanctions and the spreading coronavirus.

Vahid Abedini, Razieh Armin • 11 min read

Current Analysis

Iraqi Protesters Thwarted by Trump's Iran Policy

The recent US assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Soleimani has had dire consequences for the Iraqi protest movement and its calls for substantive changes in the Iraqi political system.

Yousef K. Baker • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Protesting Clerical Welfarism in Iran’s Pious City

Protests in Iran's holy city of Qom reveal that social fragmentation in Iran runs so deep that even within a community as intimately related to religious learning and the state as Qom, the divisions and boundaries go beyond easy distinctions between regime and opposition, hardliner and reformer or s

Mehdi Faraji • 13 min read

MER Article

Abadan

In fall 1978, Abadan’s oil refinery workers played a decisive role in the Iranian Revolution by joining the national mass strikes. Just two years later, Abadan and the adjoining port city of Khorramshahr were shelled by the invading Iraqi army and effectively destroyed during the Iran–Iraq war (1980

Rasmus Christian Elling, Kaveh Ehsani • 10 min read

MER Article

The Psycho-Politics of Wellbeing

Iranians have repurposed, reconfigured and transliterated the psychiatric concepts of depression and trauma as depreshen and toroma. In this wide-ranging interview, Orkideh Behrouzan speaks with Sheila Carapico about the politics of Iranian mental health care policy, public discussion of the effects

Orkideh Behrouzan • 16 min read

MER Article

Iran Dispatch

Trumpism has discombobulated Iran. Revulsion against President Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric and policies has achieved the rare feat of unifying the disgruntled Iranian public and the fractious ruling elite. This nationalist backlash barely conceals the internal crises facing Iran at every level—social, political, environmental and economic. In January

Kaveh Ehsani • 6 min read

Current Analysis

How the Houthis Became “Shi‘a”

It is wrong to code what is happening in Yemen as a Sunni-Shi‘i conflict. The Houthis are not an Iranian proxy but a predominantly local political movement founded in long-standing, Yemen-centric grievances and power struggles. The cynical use of sectarian language casts the conflict in Yemen as par

Anna Gordon, Sarah Parkinson • 10 min read

Current Analysis

A “Blue” Generation and Protests in Iran

On Friday, December 29, 2017, a protest suddenly broke out in the shrine city of Mashhad, one of Iran’s major urban centers located in the northeast of the country. Although evidence indicates that the protests were prompted by hardliners in order to undermine President Hassan Rouhani, they rapidly spread

Aghil Daghagheleh • 9 min read

Current Analysis

Another Brick in the Wall

At ten o’clock in the morning, Thursday October 5, 2017, about 500 teachers gathered in front of the Budget and Planning Office in Tehran. [1] They were joined by thousands of colleagues protesting in front of education offices in a reported 21 cities across the country. Turning Global Teachers’

Zep Kalb • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Labor and Class in Iran

Mohammad Maljoo is a Tehran-based economist researching labor issues and the transformation of capital-labor relations in post-revolutionary Iran. Widely published in several languages, Maljoo is also the Persian translator of numerous books on political economy by thinkers such as Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson and Albert Hirschman. The bulk of

Paola Rivetti • 14 min read

Current Analysis

Lessons Learned (and Ignored)

On May 23, 1997, Mohammad Khatami, who had spent most of the 1990s as head of the National Library, defeated Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, the speaker of Parliament, to become president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The election was a turning point in post-revolutionary history—the underdog beat the

Naghmeh Sohrabi, Arang Keshavarzian • 19 min read