IAEA Condemnation of Iran: An Omen of New Sanctions or a Symbolic Slap on the Wrist?

(Juan Cole | Informed Consent | 28 November 2009) – The board of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday condemned Iran for secretly building a new nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo near Qom, and called on it to mothball the new site. The resolution was backed by the permanent members of the UN Security Council, including China and Russia, as well as Germany. Read the rest of this entry »

Iran’s Dangerous Power Vacuum

Ahmadinejad’s grip is slipping. The ayatollah is losing ground. And the military is on the rise. Gary Sick on how Obama should handle the aftershocks of a political earthquake.

(Gary Sick | The Daily Beast | 27 November 2009) - Iran is at a revolutionary juncture, one of those hinge moments in history when an explosion of actions and debates produces towering outcomes—often unintended—that bend the course of events the way a black hole in space bends a beam of light. In the tumult of these moments, it is almost impossible to know how it will end; only in retrospect does the outcome appear inevitable. Read the rest of this entry »

Iran Expanding Effort to Stifle the Opposition

(Robert F. Worth | New York Times | 24 November 2009) — After last summer’s disputed presidential election, Iran’s government relied largely on brute force — beatings, arrests and show trials — to stifle the country’s embattled opposition movement. Read the rest of this entry »

Draft IAEA Resolution To Press Iran On Enrichment

(Reuters | 24 November 2009) - Six world powers have drafted a resolution at the UN nuclear watchdog urging Iran to clarify the purpose of its previously secret uranium enrichment site and confirm it has no more hidden atomic work, diplomats said. Read the rest of this entry »

Maziar Bahari: Witness

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(Bob Simon | 60 Minutes – CBS News | 22 November 2009) - Recently freed after four months of interrogation and torture in Iran, Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari tells his story to Bob Simon and writes about his ordeal in the next issue of Newsweek.

In the next two “extra” video segments, “A Peaceful Terrorist” and “Mr. Hillary Clinton” journalist Maziar Bahari explains how he was the most dangerous kind of opponent to the Iranian government and how a strange nickname gave him hope in an Iranian prison. Read the rest of this entry »

Prisons and Protests: Covering Iran After the Election

Woodrow Wilson Center | Washington D.C. | 30 November 2009

The Middle East Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting present a panel discussion with Iason Athanasiadis, freelance journalist; Barbara Slavin, Assistant Managing Editor for World and National Security, The Washington Times; and Jon Sawyer, Executive Director, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Iason Athanasiadis is a writer, photographer, and documentary filmmaker covering Middle Eastern current affairs from his Istanbul base. He reported on Iran’s presidential election for American and British news outlets, including The Washington Times, on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. He was jailed at the direction of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and held for three weeks in solitary confinement at Tehran’s Evin Prison. He was a consultant on A Death in Iran, a documentary for the BBC and PBS Frontline that aired earlier this month. Read the rest of this entry »

A Death In Tehran

(PBS | Frontline | 17 November 2009) - At the height of the protests following Iran’s controversial presidential election this summer, a young woman named Neda Agha Soltan was shot and killed on the streets of Tehran. Her death — filmed on a camera phone, then uploaded to the Web — quickly became an international outrage, and Soltan became the face of a powerful movement that threatened the hard-line government’s hold on power.

In A Death in Tehran, FRONTLINE revisits the events of last summer, shedding new light on Neda’s life and death and the movement she helped inspire. Read the rest of this entry »

Iran, the United States, Israel and Nuclear Weapons
Can Diplomacy Work?

Carnegie Endowment for Peace | Washington D.C. | 20 November 2009

Dr. Trita Parsi, one of America’s foremost experts on Iran, is the author of Treacherous Alliance – the Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States (2007) which won the Council on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Polk Award. Dr. Parsi has a PhD from Johns Hopkins/SAIS. He is now the President of the National Iranian American Council, adjunct scholar at the Middle East Insitute and a regular writer and sought-after commentator on Iran. He will speak on the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian decision making process, the Iran dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and prospects for a resolving the crisis.

This event is sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Americans for Peace Now, Churches for Middle East Peace and the Middle East Institute. Read the rest of this entry »

Iran After the Election

Columbia University – School of International and Public Affairs| 5 December 2009

The recent elections in Iran, and subsequent challenges to their legitimacy, have been a matter of enormous internal conflict in Iran, and of seemingly endless debate in the rest of the world.  As protesters continue to take to the Iranian street to voice their opposition to the elections, fault-lines are emerging amongst the ruling elite.  These momentous events constitute a significant challenge to the legitimacy of the Iranian regime and the future of the Islamic Republic.  The conference will be an opportunity to have leading Iranian scholars and analysts discuss the impact of the recent elections, Iran’s relationship with the international community and the theocratic foundations of the Islamic Republic.

The one-day conference being held at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs  will feature Ervand Abrahamian, Asef Bayat, Hamid Dabashi, Shahla Talebi discussing the “Aftermath of the Election,” Farideh Farhi, Gary Sick, Wayne White, Judith Yaphe discussing “International Challenges,” and Houchang Chehabi, Mansour Farhang, Hossein Kamaly, Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, and Abdolkarim Soroush “Appraising the Life of the Republic.”  For more event information and to register, visit the conference website.

US seizes mosques allegedly linked to Iranian government

(Associated Press | 13 November 2009) - In what could be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, federal prosecutors sought to take over four U.S. mosques and a New York City skyscraper owned by a Muslim organization suspected of being controlled by the Iranian government. Read the rest of this entry »