IRAN-US

Weighty Agenda

Cheney's Middle East trip

by Simon Henderson
14-Mar-2008 (8 comments)
On March 16, Vice President Cheney departs on a Middle East trip that will take him to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank, and Turkey. Coming less than two months after President Bush's trip to the region, the vice president's itinerary is intriguing. His undisclosed agenda with "key partners," in the words of the White House announcement, is likely to include the peace process, the price of oil, Iraq, and Iran. And among those issues, Iran will likely be the most mentioned, especially given this week's controversial resignation of Adm. William Fallon as the top U.S. commander in the Middle East -- a move attributed in part to differences on Iran between him and the White House>>>

MUSICMAN

Emissary of Love

A Conversation with Kourosh Taghavi

by Mersedeh
14-Mar-2008 (2 comments)
There once was one; and then there were none. Under the blue dome of the evening sky, apart from the presence of God, there was absolutely no one…. Nestled between the Caspian Sea and the Alborz Mountains, in the city of wolves, lived a little boy with his grandfather. The little boy loved to hear stories and his grandfather had many to tell, and so they spent most of their days together. Years passed; the boy grew up and left home to live adventures of his own; chasing legends and dreaming of giants. Along his journey, he spent many nights under the blue dome of foreign skies, far from his city and far from anyone to guide him.>>>

STORY

The Spider Killings (8)

Tired of playing by the rules, of being good and decent, honest and pure

by laleh haghighi
14-Mar-2008
Sharif always left the Imam Reza shrine with regret. It was the most grandiose homage to God that man had ever built. Sharif was sure of it, although he had scarcely ventured out of his native city except to serve at the front during the war. The enormous domes of the two mosques, one gold and one turquoise, stood proudly over the city, which squirmed beneath their shadows. In between, a gargantuan web of hallways and corridors, fountains and courtyards, not to mention the many buildings housed in the complex, the religious schools, the museum, the library…>>>

ECONOMY

Can you say stagflation?

What fuels the current inflationary expectations is the increasing commodity prices

by varjavand
14-Mar-2008
If you keep track of economic news these days, you notice that the word stagflation is frequently uttered by newscasters and economic analysts. This term was coined by economists to describe an unconventional phenomenon that took place in late 1970s: the simultaneous occurrence of high unemployment and high inflation. The combined unemployment rate and inflation rate, properly called the misery index, averaged over 17% from 1974 to 1981. It has been nearly 8% since 1993. >>>

ANALYSIS

Fatal attractions

The Perils and Costs of a Grand Bargain with the Islamic Republic of Iran

by Masoud Kazemzadeh
13-Mar-2008 (74 comments)
Among other factors, the American failure to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan has fueled Iran's attempt at regional supremacy to the consternation of many in the region and beyond. The failure of the containment policy, fear that the Islamic Republic will develop nuclear weapons, and the bellicose rhetoric and policies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have given rise to urgent discussions about how best to counter the threat of the fundamentalist regime. The main policies under discussion are regime change; surgical strikes; reconfigured containment; limited, issue-based dialogue; and a "grand bargain.">>>

MY LIFE

Chapter 1: Childhood in Ahvaz

by Saeed Tavakkol
13-Mar-2008 (3 comments)
No one has ever been sentenced to a sever punishment called education as young as I was. “I don’t know how to punish him anymore, I ran out of ideas, I’ve tried everything.” I heard my mother saying this with tears in her eyes to my father the night before my sentence was carried out. I was three years old then. The next morning I was trailing my father with a gloomy face to the Mactab (Those days in our town, house-wives who had some education thought neighboring children under school age for a small fee in their homes. The curriculum was learning alphabets and listening to the teacher reciting Koran)>>>

TRAVEL

Discover the familiar

You might call Iranians the French of the Middle East

by Diyana Ishak
13-Mar-2008 (2 comments)
How "normal" can a nation be that so often exudes defiance and antagonism? With a belligerent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the forefront of most minds when it comes to Iran, what could a visitor expect to find in the county? Do women lead a normal life despite a draconian police ready to punish the most basic transgressions of wardrobe? Does the Islamic conservatism of the post-revolutionary era make for a sheltered youth? Recently, I was interested in answering some of these questions. As a citizen of Singapore, I am entitled to a 14-day visa-free entry into Iran>>>

CANDIDATE

Why I want Obama to win

I truly believe that Obama will be better for not only the U.S but also Iran and the world

by Setareh Sabety
12-Mar-2008 (29 comments)
I backed the war in Iraq even though I have always been a democrat. My reason for cheering the Americans when they invaded Iraq was simple: I was hoping that the American success there would ignite unrest in Iran and bring about the fall of the theocratic regime. While I disagreed with Bush’s policies in every other area I was pro-war. I was a liberal hawk, as a friend pointed out, giving me the very American comfort of a label. Now, like most people, including Hillary Clinton, I have come to realize that the war was a mistake. It was a mistake because Americans don’t know how to be an occupying force in a time when information and ideology travel freely and ruthlessly>>>

IRAN

No need for another revolution

Revolutions that espouse social justice have the tendency to lead to more injustice

by Ben Madadi
12-Mar-2008 (18 comments)
Revolution seems a good thing, theoretically speaking, but historically speaking it has usually been a not-so-rosy moment in time when injustices took place, lives and relations got shattered, and societies were shaken to their cores, very often taking them a very long time to recover from the trauma. Revolutions in Russia, China, France, Iran and about anywhere else hardly brought anything extraordinary. Their peers who missed the revolutions did quite well, and usually much better. It is complicated to evaluate what would have happened if there was no revolution but one thing is certain that neither the French revolution nor Communist revolutions of Russia, China and other places, nor the Islamic revolution of Iran brought anything to be proud of>>>

REVIEW

Back from the dead

On Sepideh Khosrowjah's "In memory of Kazem Ashtari"

by Ari Siletz
12-Mar-2008 (2 comments)
Backstage I told actress Bella Warda that I thought her character, the resilient Mahin Ashtari is in very good hands. If you haven’t been backstage after a play, prepare for a jolting experience. There is strong magic in speaking to someone--still in costume and sweating from the ordeal--who has just returned from the story world. This is something film can never do. As I waited to congratulate actress Sepideh Khosrowjah, she was still the ambitious yet easily dominated character, Shafagh Gooya. The fact that as playwright Khosrowjah created Shafagh and all the other characters in the comedy belonged to the reality she was just coming back to>>>

WAR

Friendly fire

Removing obstacle to a feared White House led pre-emptive military strike on Iran

by Babak Talebi
12-Mar-2008 (37 comments)
The Pentagon has announced that the 41-year navy veteran and commander of US Central Command (CentCom), requested permission to retire and Secretary Gates approved his request. Last week, Thomas Barnett of Esquire Magazine published a revealing piece speculating on the possibility that Admiral Fallon might be pushed out because he “was the strongest man standing between the Bush Administration and a war with Iran.” Gates was quick to call a press conference to announce the retirement and dispel the notion that there were any policy differences between Fallon and the administration>>>

PLAY

Shaherezad in Santa Monica

A Verse Drama

by Majid Naficy
12-Mar-2008 (one comment)
This play is about the love relationship between Shahram, an Iranian poet living in exile, and Shaherezad, an Iranian activist who had been in prison for 11 years during both the Shah and Khomeini's regimes. They both had lost their partners, Ezzat and Hamid, in Tehran execution fields in the 1980's. In Act I, they meet in Santa Monica, California, and fall in love. But in Act II, difficulties arise and in Act III, Shahram has to accept the fact that Shaherezad has begun to date an American professor, Sean >>>

ELECTIONS

Real change

Change will not come to America… certainly not because of the 2008 elections

by Ben Tanosborn
11-Mar-2008 (4 comments)
Change, at least in America, has become solely a self-reminder of how much we may dislike ourselves in many of the things we do, or permit to have done, to others in the planet, or even to ourselves. But change – honest-to-goodness change – is something we can rest assured will not take place… not with Sen. Obama, not with Sen. Clinton; not even if either received an unprecedented and miraculous 70 percent of the popular vote – an unquestionable mandate to effect change. Change as a major transformation of our government, or of our civil society, or the way we do things, just won’t take place>>>

FREEDOM

شیر آزادی

کو و کجا تا شخصی با این شجاعت برخیزد و از شجاعت او خلقی بهره مند شوند؟

by Abdolkarim Soroush
11-Mar-2008 (9 comments)
مرحوم احمد بورقانی که البته من توفیق اندکی در هم صحبتی با ایشان داشتم اما با کارها و زحمت ها و خدمت های او آشنایی داشتم. به خصوص از وقتی که گشایش پس از انسدادی در جامعه ما رخ داد و مردم با آرای خود مردی را بر مصدر ریاست جمهوری نشاندند که از او توقعات بلند و بزرگی داشتند، علی الخصوص برداشتن قدم هایی استوار در راه آزادی و ایجاد جامعه مدنی. وعده های بزرگی هم از او شنیدند. ملموس ترین و دیدنی ترین بهره و بخش آن وعده ها، آزادی مطبوعات و مطبوعات آزاد بود. البته وزارت ارشاد در این امر مسیولیت اول و اهم و احسن را داشت. مرحوم بورقانی چنان چه همه ما اینک می دانیم به سمت معاون وزیر در امور مطبوعات در آن وزارت خانه مشغول به کار شد و آن چه که ما از جنس شکوفایی مطبوعات در دوران ریاست جمهوری آقای خاتمی می دانیم تا حدود بسیار زیادی مرهون دلیری های این از دست رفته عزیز است.>>>

MYTHS

My hero in the dark

My father took me every Thursday night to the only movie theater of the town

by Azarin Sadegh
11-Mar-2008 (13 comments)
We lived in a small town in Mazandaran and my father was respected and well known. He was a busy man and I, as a little girl, craved to spend more time with him. My father took me every Thursday night to the only movie theater of the town. Our family had its own special reserved seats. Row nine, seats 10 to 14. Every time we drove down the main street, I looked for that place. The brown brick building with an orange fluorescent sign at its side. I would stare at the letters forming the word “Cinema.” I could find it from afar, could recognize its shape, and I envied anyone standing in the black line waiting to buy a ticket. I would gaze at the colorful posters of actors and picture their adventures in my daydreams>>>
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