Kadir Ustun

WASHINGTON—The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed the fourth round of sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran on June 9, 2010. The U.S. administration made the case that the main objective of Resolution 1929 was to “complement” the dual-track approach the UNSC is pursuing in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon capabilities. This approach would involve sanctions targeting specific institutions and individuals while keeping open the possibility of negotiations with Iran. Whether this approach would work with Iran remains a question, a concern shared by Brazil and Turkey, who have voted “no” at the Security Council. more»

Shervin Malekzadeh

With limited access to the Islamic Republic, it is perhaps not surprising that Iran watchers routinely turn to that country’s textbooks as ciphers for understanding the effects of the regime’s efforts to produce the New Islamic Citizen. More often than not, the conclusions that emerge from these investigations confirm what many already presume to know about Iran: that the regime is successfully indoctrinating young Iranians with its brand of militant and anti-western Islam. more»

Kawe Qoraishy

The Islamic Republic’s recent execution of five Kurds has sparked outrage in northern Iraq, and renewed unrest at home.

Two days after the hanging of five Iranian Kurds in Tehran, protesters gathered across the Iraqi border in the Kurdish city of Suleymanieh. Thousands of them crowded into the city’s leafy Freedom Park, where Javad Alizadeh, a well-known former political prisoner in Iran who had recently left for Iraqi Kurdistan, addressed the gathering. The Iranian regime “follows neither the principles of republicanism, nor does it abide by holy laws of Islam,” Alizadeh declared. “The Islamic Republic has shown in the past 30 years that it only cares about its own survival and it will not abstain from committing the vilest of acts in achieving its goal.” more»

Mohammad Reza Heidari, a high-ranking Iranian diplomat in Norway, announced in December that he was quitting the foreign ministry and not returning to Tehran. He now lives in Norway, where he spoke with insideIRAN.org

Q: Why did you leave your post at the Iranian embassy in Norway and cut off ties with the Islamic Republic?

Babak B. and Arash Aramesh

TEHRAN — Iran is responding harshly to the U.S.–sponsored nuclear summit, which opened April 12 in Washington. The state-run media is filled with articles about an impending threat from the West – an attempt to alert Iranian society that, at least according to Iran’s leaders, the country is again a victim of Western aggression.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went as far as to declare that the world leaders attending the summit were “stupid” and “retarded.”