Gonul Tol

WASHINGTON—The 1990s were marked by hostile relations between Iran and Turkey, which was the direct outcome of Turkish foreign policy elite’s conviction that Iran was supporting the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and had a campaign to export Islamic revolution to Turkey. more»

Geneive Abdo
First published on ForeignPolicy.com

Iran’s most independent politician finally casts his lot with the hard-liners. Is this the end for the green movement, or just the beginning?

Iran’s most watched man has finally made his move. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and the country’s most skilled political operator, had been sending mixed signals since the contentious June election, one day appearing sympathetic with the opposition and the next declaring his loyalty to the regime. Throughout this long political dance, both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the opposition “green movement” appreciated that securing the allegiance of Rafsanjani, a key player in Iranian politics since the Islamic Revolution, would represent a significant victory. more»

Mohammad Khiabani

Tabriz, Iran—Iranian politicians are always quick to praise Tabriz’s revolutionary credentials. During a November 2009 visit to the city, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recalled, “the people [of Tabriz and Iranian Azerbaijan] are pioneers of the pro-constitution movement, repelling the aggressors and acts of mischief and defending the supreme ideals of the Islamic Revolution.” The uprising of 29th of Bahman (February 19, 1978) in the city was a key continuation of the forty-day cycles of protest that spurred the Iranian Revolution forward. Further back, Tabriz, due to its closeness to Turkish and Russian intellectual circles, was a vanguard of intellectual agitation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the 1891 Tobacco Protest and the 1906 Constitutional Revolution to the 1946 Autonomous Azerbaijan’s People’s Government, Tabrizis have a long lineage of rebelliousness. How does this history resonate in the current, still-simmering political crisis centered in Tehran? more»

Mr. Mousavi Khoeini is a former member of the Iranian parliament and a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He spoke with insideIRAN.org from Washington, D.C..

Q: How do you interpret Supreme Leader Khamenei’s recent statements? Do you think he is welcoming moderate conservatives back into the fold? What do you think is his view now of Hashemi Rafsanjani? more»

Babak

TEHRAN—After almost seven months of political hegemony for the hardliners, orchestrated by and centered around the political command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the moderate conservatives now are back at center stage of Iran’s political scene. more»