Worldcrunch
The ceasefire agreed on between Israel and the Tehran regime is not an end to hostilities but likely a “breather” for both sides who insist they have unfinished business with one another. But Israel’s recent battering of Iranian sites, war matériel and senior cadres may have left the ayatollahs with “none of the cards.”
A photographer captured the seasoned Iranian official Ali Larijani laughing on his visit Thursday to Beirut, fully aware of what laughter means in such a situation. The seasoned Iranian diplomat knows that many Lebanese hold his regime responsible for dragging their country into a bloody, senseless, and destructive war.
Israel and the West are seeking a stabilized Middle East to shorten the trading corridor with India and Asia. It’s a win-win situation for prosperous economies and the West, but what about Tehran’s truculent regime?
When Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on a stronghold in Beirut, journalist Khaled Dawoud recalled his meeting with the head of Hezbollah more than two decades ago, and gauges how his death marks the end of an era of confrontation with Israel.
November 6 – November 12, 2023
Iran must one day write the history of the violence perpetrated on its women, especially under the 40-year Islamic Republic, if historiography is to serve its progress toward a peaceful, democratic society.
Iran and Saudi Arabia have announced they will restore diplomatic relations. The news may have proved startling — especially China’s role — but is unlikely to dispel long-standing distrust between two regional rivals.
In recent weeks, Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has made repeated references to the end of Iran’s last regime in 1979. It may be a sign the country is indeed approaching another kind of revolution.
The showdown between Iranian protesters and the clerical regime is another episode in a decades-long clash of theocracy and Western-style secular modernity. Its outcomes will reverberate across the entire Islamic world, so the West needs to pay attention.
On the political left, writers and intellectuals around the world have shown a chilling indifference to the recent attack on the author Salman Rushdie. But this is not the first time they have quietly taken the side of the enemies of freedom.
With increasing frequency, Iranians are destroying or defacing the monuments of revolutionary and clerical leaders that they have come to loathe as symbols of oppression. It is a dangerous act of protest against the regime, which has called the vandalism “vile.”
A dispute between Iran’s foreign minister and a leading regime hardliner over whether to insist on removing the paramilitary from the “terrorist” list indicates divisions in the Islamic Republic over what kind of nuclear deal it wants with the West.
The news continues to be troubling for Tehran: Several more Arab states have followed Saudi Arabia to cut or curb ties with Iran in the wake of a showdown over Riyadh’s execution of a Shia leader. And yet, Iran’s reformist leaders and most of the country’s media are remaining notably calm. In the immediate aftermath […]