An 'Epic' Mess in Iran
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wants an 'epic' election. He may get one, but not the kind he expected.
Here they go again: Every four years, theocratic Iran holds presidential elections. If that sounds like a contradiction, if not an oxymoron, that's because it is. On the one hand, virtually all power ostensibly rests with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who claims to represent God’s ultimate sovereignty on earth. On the other, the elected president (also ostensibly) represents the republican principle of popular sovereignty. This time around, about 700 people have registered to run, though no more than seven of them can be considered serious candidates. READ MORE >>
In the last issue of The New Republic, Abbas Milani offers a critical take on Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett's new book Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran. In their response below, the Leveretts say Milani's review illustrates "how Iranian expatriates and Iranian-Americans with an animus against the Islamic Republic w READ MORE >>
The American Voices of the Islamist Regime in Iran
Two former U.S. officials make the case for accommodation
Two follies have long haunted American policy on Iran. Some critics and foes of the Islamic regime in Tehran have preferred “no negotiation with the regime” as the proper American policy. They have argued that even talking to the regime confers upon it a legitimacy that it does not possess and does not deserve to possess. The regime, this camp claims, is on the verge of collapse, and negotiating with it would only prolong its moribund life. READ MORE >>
Iran’s ‘Cyber-Jihad’ Claims Another Victim
A Tour of Egypt’s Half-Finished Revolution
How Ahmadinejad’s Regime Tried—and Failed—to Break One Protester's Spirit
Desperate Dictatorship
Then They Came For Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival By Maziar Bahari with Aimee Molloy (Random House, 356 pp., $27) Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran - A Journey Behind the Headlines By Scott Peterson (Simon & Schuster, 732 pp., $32) After Khomeini: Iran Under His Successor By Saïd Amir Arjomand (Oxford University Press, 268 pp., $24.95) READ MORE >>
