It is workers who have been hit the most, writes Yassamine Mather, while those close to the regime have benefited enormously We all remember Hillary Clinton’s promise of “targeted sanctions” against Iran’s Islamic republic. They were deployed to ‘moderate’ the Shia government’s regional policies, as well as its internal human rights record. Of course, anyone…
Category: Articles
Forty years of inequality
The US administration preferred Islamists to leftists, says Yassamine Mather Commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the February 1979 uprising in Iran has been marked by dozens of scholarly seminars in Europe, numerous documentaries produced by the Persian-language media, as well the usual military parade inside the country. Documentaries produced outside Iran concentrate on memoirs…
Israel and Saudi Arabia in cahoots
Saudi plans for regional domination are not meeting with much success, writes Yassamine Mather More than six weeks after the death of Jamal Khashoggi we know a lot more about his tragic plight after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. However, it is still unclear who ordered his execution, what will be done about…
The Iranian opposition: fishing in muddy waters
Repression and exile have clouded the view of Iranian anti-government forces, writes Mohamad Moein in Tehran Throughout history governments have faced opposition to their rule and the current period is no exception. These days in Iran , the opponents of the Islamic Republic are known as the opposition. In English speaking countries, the term opposition…
No to unprincipled alliances
Iranian workers should be careful about who they associate with, writes Yassamine Mather In the aftermath of the protests of late December and early January, there is a consensus that the majority of Iranians face a dire economic situation, while the poorer sections of the working class face hunger and complete destitution. Yet exiled royalists…
Drumbeats of war
Beirut is now the focus of the burgeoning Saudi-Iranian rivalry The political saga involving Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iran continues to make headlines and we are nowhere near a resolution of the situation. In the meantime, the war in Yemen – scene of another proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia – is entering…
Redrawing the map: why is Trump abandoning the nuclear deal?
War will follow war In a single speech on October 13, lasting just a few minutes, Donald Trump managed to succeed in doing what had seemed impossible for decades – uniting the Iranian government and the almost all the opposition to the regime (ironically including sections of Trump’s own ‘regime change from above’ gang), as…
Nationalism and imperial power
The Kurdish regional government (KRG) in Iraq will be holding a referendum on the issue of independence on September 25. There have been appeals for it to be delayed and the date has changed a number of times, but at the moment it looks like the vote will go ahead. In…
Part and parcel of global capital
In late July around 50 political prisoners in Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison were moved to new cells, where windows are covered by metal sheets, access to drinking water is limited and prisoners complain of suffocation and dehydration. In protest 17 of them began a hunger strike. One of them is labour activist Reza Shahabi. He…
Genuine, consistent solidarity
Last week Iran’s Islamic Republic tested a ballistic missile – at a time when US military threats against Iran have dominated Middle Eastern news. The test was unsuccessful, but its political repercussions were serious. After months of restraint, maybe the country’s rulers thought that president Donald Trump – under attack for the Russia dossier and…