The Logic of Regime Change and the Allure of Revolution
From the outset, the concept of “barandāzi” (براندازی) defined itself in opposition to reformism, while at the same time keeping a deliberate distance from its conceptual sibling, revolution.
Latest
Blood and Bones Besieged by Two Camps
Thursday 22 January 2026 Besiege your besiegement, no way out. Your arms fell, pick them up. Strike your enemy, no way out. Mahmoud Darwish From the moment we open our eyes, if we have slept at all, we coil inward like serpents, tightening with each new blow of bad news.
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
Iran Is Being Silenced Again: What to Expect Next?
by Mahtab Mahboub Tuesday 13 January 2026 Iran is undergoing an escalation of repression by the government: a nationwide internet shutdown—now extended to satellite services such as Starlink—is being used to erase visibility while security forces kill protesters and extort families for the return of bodies. This strategy
Structural Crisis and the Expectation of Revolution
In Iran, economic demands are political. Like “Woman, Life, Freedom,” today’s protests are cross-class and pluralistic, binding bread-and-butter grievances to calls for human dignity and freedom, a signature pattern of 21st-century movements.
After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness for the Lurs?
The history of the Lurs is scarred by catastrophes under the Pahlavi regime. The puzzle is how that same regime, or its admirers, reshaped memory so that mass killings are minimized and the butchers of Lorestan are not only forgotten, but forgiven.
Water Management in Iran as Internal Colonialism
Persian edition In late November 2025, outside the Governorate of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad in Yasuj, a scene unfolded whose very plainness made it one of the most condensed images of the water–development–power nexus in Iran today. ISNA reports that “the people of Yasuj, the provincial capital of Kohgiluyeh
The Archive of Mourning and Resistance: From Rabia’s Poetry to Naming Femicide
If we want to fight femicide today, we have to do two things at the same time: expose the structure and record the feeling. A legal and political struggle without archiving feelings collapses into statistics; and an archive of feelings without structure dissolves into ineffectual tears.
Dispossessing Life: The Urban Machinery of Erasing Small Livelihoods
Ahmad Baladi’s death exposes a system where “urban order” masks dispossession. Small livelihoods are erased through legal procedures that present poverty not as a social condition, but as an administrative offense.
Gaza Beyond Metaphor: On Hamid Dabashi’s Civilizational Ethics
Dabashi’s power lies in rewriting the genealogy of colonial violence and binding it to the present. Still, his critique falters when it treats “the West” as an essence or "civilizational instinct" rather than a shifting system of power and institutions.
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?
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.
Essay
The Ascent of Life: A Narrative of Iran After Jina
The Islamic Republic regime is weakened but still poses a threat to the Iranian people. The recent short conflict with Israel revealed the country's vulnerabilities and the helplessness of its citizens. How can domestic tyranny be dismantled without succumbing to foreign warfare or internal chaos?
Special Report
From Smuggled Sheep to Border Security: Tracing the Fires in Kurdistan’s Wilderness
Between March and September, some 3,123 hectares of forests and rangelands across Kurdistan have burned. What lies behind these fires? What resources do local volunteers have to fight them? And how has the state responded?
News Analysis
The Prospect of Renewed Strikes by Israel and the United States, the Paralysis of State and Opposition, and the People’s Abandonment
The abandonment of the Iranian people cannot be laid solely at the feet of their rulers. The same indecision and short-termism that have long characterized the regime’s nuclear diplomacy appear, in another form, in the fractured ranks of the opposition.
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?
Essay
Nationalism, War, and Affection for One’s Homeland
A sense of belonging to one’s home is a human feeling; it does not inherently require allegiance to any particular state or fixed borders. Home is where you work, toil, build a life and a house.
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.”
Lebanonizing Iran: A Trump-Era Option on the Table
Two weeks after the ceasefire between Israel and the Islamic Republic, signs that Israel, backed by the United States and Western allies, is pursuing a policy of “Lebanonizing” Iran are beginning to materialize.
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.
A Note from the Publisher
What journalism means in a Western democracy is not identical to what it means for a diasporic Persian outlet like ours. And yet—amid all these differences—there are a few things that should remain universal.