Essay
Collective Trauma in the Cinema of Jafar Panahi
Panahi’s latest film is a political black comedy with a mystery at its core. Its subject is both grim and peculiar: the enduring bond between torturer and victim in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Abdee Kalantari
Political Commentary
Power and Shi‘a Theocracy in Iran
Editorial Note (2026): In the wake of the popular protests in Iran in January 2026, public curiosity about the nature of the Islamic Republic, its political architecture, and its internal logic of power has intensified. The essay below, first published in Persian in 2013, is drawn from the archives of
News Analysis
The Story of a Structural Corruption
What did bring Ayandeh Bank to its knees? How did a supposedly modern private bank accumulate a deficit so vast, 550 trillion tomans in losses, that the Central Bank could no longer look away?
Political Commentary
Through the Tunnel: Life and the Economy in Tehran
In Tehran, prices move like shadows on a wall, unsteady, alive, changing shape every hour. The city inhales but does not move forward; it circles within itself, whispering the language of survival: rent, exchange rate, bread, medicine, and the hope of a light at the tunnel’s end.
News Analysis
Azadi Square and the Concert That Never Happened
In a country where poverty, corruption, water and power shortages, and runaway inflation are fueling unprecedented anger, the sight of a massive crowd gathered freely in the heart of Tehran could have done more than provide music; it could have lit the fuse of a street revolt.
Essay
The Current Deadlock of Politics in Iran
What steps in domestic politics could keep us from sliding into an external military aggression, a coup, civil war, and economic–environmental ruin?
Political Commentary
Why the “Moderate Factions” Are Smiling
After Israel’s twelve-day military onslaught, the moderates are openly talking about the need to change the “governance paradigm.” That paradigm, when stripped of euphemism, is the Supreme Leader’s doctrine of clerical rule (Velayat-e-Faghih) and the Shiite radicalism of the “Axis of Resistance.”
After the Supreme Leader, After Fordo
Any viable political force hoping to step in must already have a domestic base, an organizational structure, and some measure of security and military support to prevent the collapse into anarchy. No such force exists.
Political Commentary
The War Began
Whether the Iranian public is supportive of these strikes or instead deeply fearful remains unclear. While opposition groups abroad have expressed elation, and outlets such as Iran International have extensively amplified Israeli messaging in recent hours, the internal mood appears more complex.
Essay
Peace with the Devil
“The Great Satan”, a label once wielded by the founder of the Islamic Republic to describe the United States, has long faded from Iranian discourse. Today, few Iranians remember the revolutionary fervor that once infused the phrase.