About Us

News is our starting point, not our final product.

Iran Draft gives Persian-speaking readers in Iran and across the diaspora essays and analysis that place the country’s political, social, and cultural events in their historical, economic, cultural, and lived contexts. Our aim is to help readers see beyond the rapid news cycle to the structures and processes that shape events, so they can judge developments more carefully and take part in public conversations about Iran with an understanding not only of the issue, but also of the historical, cultural, and social conditions in which it arises.

We are not a newsroom, and we do not provide daily reporting. Iran Draft is produced by a small group of writers and scholars who follow the news but do not compete for speed. Instead, we ask: Where did this event come from? What historical and social forces made it possible? What relations of power lie behind it? What disappears from the prevailing account? And what does it mean for people’s lives?

Our work moves between the essay, social analysis, and narrative. We draw on research, credible reporting, documentary sources, and lived experience without aspiring to the impersonal style of an academic journal. We bring conceptual thought together with clear prose, concrete detail, and storytelling, preserving complexity while keeping the work vivid and accessible beyond the university.

Each contributor approaches a subject through a distinct body of knowledge, experience, style, and set of concerns. Iran Draft’s writers are not expected to reach the same conclusions or speak in a uniform voice. What brings us together is a commitment to argument, accuracy, context, intellectual independence, and the complexity of Iranian society.

To date, Iran Draft has published a growing body of Persian and English essays on war and sanctions, protest and authoritarianism, class and livelihood, nationalism, the relationship between center and periphery, women and minority communities, collective memory, cinema, and culture. These essays connect scattered experiences and passing headlines to longer-lasting structures and processes. Our English edition also brings selected Iranian arguments and experiences to readers beyond the Persian-speaking world.

Iran Draft is published by First Draft Media. Reader support helps sustain the project and protect its independence. By becoming a member or supporter, you can receive new work and help maintain a space devoted not to adding to the volume of news, but to deepening its meaning.

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