Farideh Farhi

HONOLULU –While in the past few weeks, the world’s attention has been on the interim agreement over the transfer of Iran’s enriched uranium to Russia, Iran’s domestic scene has been consumed with the fate of subsidy reform proposed by the Ahmadinejad administration and mulled over by the Parliament. more»

Mahmood Monshipouri

SAN FRANCISCO – The latest technical proposals to emerge from meetings at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to defuse the standoff over Iran’s nuclear project represent a clear and convincing victory for diplomacy over the cold war rhetoric that had seen Tehran denounced repeatedly by the Bush administration as part of an “axis of evil.” Under the emerging agreement—still to be ratified by Washington and Tehran and far from a done deal—Iran would ship low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further enrichment that would then be returned to Iran for use in medical research and treatment. This development occurred despite that fact that Iran is capable of producing the appropriate fuel on its own, and it speaks volumes about the reach and effectiveness of diplomacy. more»

Tara Mahtafar

WASHINGTON/TEHRAN—Iran’s internal crisis has done more than thrust the legitimacy of the Islamic political system under the leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei into the public spotlight. It also has begun to chip away at one of the ruling hardline elite’s few successful policies in recent years—its high-stakes gambit with the West over nuclear power and its implied threat of developing a nuclear bomb. more»

Geneive Abdo
Source: This was first published on foreignpolicy.com

Since the June 12 Iranian presidential election stirred massive anti-regime demonstrations, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his inner circle of hard-liners have used the armed forces — particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — to suppress dissent. Western observers have commented on the country’s slide toward military dictatorship. Fareed Zakaria, for instance, devoted his Sunday news show to it this past week. But what was once a theory now seems commonly acceptable fact, as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s latest appointments to the IRGC demonstrate. more»

Anonymous

TEHRAN—With so many leading reformists sitting in Iranian prisons, two important issues have arisen for Iranians: Has the Green Movement, and the broader opposition that it represents, been crushed by the regime’s latest moves? And, how much time has the regime bought to guarantee its survival? more»