Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies: Waking from Our Post-9/11 nightmare
Our only hope for the future is to abandon the futile quest for hegemony and instead commit to peace, cooperative diplomacy, international law, and disarmament.
Kaveh Bassiri: Writing Persian
During the hostage crisis, when I was Albanian,
my history teacher conceded, “You’ve to be born into English
to be its rightful citizen.” I wanted to be an American poet,
but was a Persian settler.
Majid Naficy: Censoring Love
Suddenly, I remember Ezzat
Who was shot in Evin Prison
And buried in the Cemetery of the Infidels
In a mass grave without any gravestones.
Belén Fernández: Friedman at 50 Friedman Units
Thanks to Thomas Friedman’s relentless service as a mouthpiece for US empire and capital, he’s permitted to continue churning out his pseudo-thoughts week after week.
Ari Honarvar: When Savoring a Pleasant Moment is a Radical Act
And then someone from another rooftop shouted a verse of Rumi’s poetry into the clear night air.
Domenico Agostini, Samuel Thrope: Apocalyptic Comfort
This is not the end. Lessons from ancient Iran.
Juan Cole: Fundamentalist Pandemics
What Evangelicals Could Learn From The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam
Video: Lunch Time
A 16-year-old Iranian girl has been notified by the local morgue to identify her mother’s body. Over the course of the next 15 minutes, this painful task proves to be more difficult than we could have ever imagined in Alireza Ghasemi’s engrossing and humanist portrait “Lunch Time.”
Karen J. Greenberg: While Rome Burns, Trump Gets What He’s Always Wanted
In unsettling ways, the crisis is working for him as previously untenable policy options are becoming essential to curtailing the coronavirus.
Majid Naficy: Corpse of the Revolution
I do not wait for poetry
But go in search of it
Because my wings are broken
And I am left far from my nest…
Mel Packer: A History of Deadly Meddling
In this essay, we hear a first-hand account from Mel Packer who was one of the Americans who visited Iran during the hostage crisis of 1980.
Sarah Anderson: Meet the Corporate War Profiteers Making a Killing on Trump’s Attacks on Iran
As long as the top executives of our privatized war economy can reap unlimited rewards, the profit motive for war in Iran—or anywhere—will persist.
W.J. Astore: Anti-war Pragmatists and Pro-war Fantasists
What if peace is really based on pragmatism, and war on fantasy?
Kristin Henderson: A Feminist Alternative to Trump’s Chest Beating on Iran
If there’s ever to be genuine and just peace between the two nations, diplomacy must be the priority, and Iranian civil society must be acknowledged and respected.
Vox Populi 