Political Commentary
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.
Political Commentary
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.
Political Commentary
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
Political Commentary
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.
Political Commentary
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.
Political Commentary
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
Political Commentary
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.
Political Commentary
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.
Political Commentary
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.
Political Commentary
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.”
Political Commentary
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.