Monthly archive : "March, 2021"

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s Green Movement reformist leaders are being widely eulogized on social media on the 11th anniversary of being put under house arrest. But while some Iranians may pine for the heady days over a decade ago when reformists were seemingly on the ascent, conservatives are widely expected to sweep presidential elections in June, further consolidating their hold on the Islamic Republic. As moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s final term draws to a close, many of his ambitions and promises will go unrealized, not least his vow to win the release of reformist luminaries Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Zahra Rahnavard. It isn’t clear to most how Iran’s moderates and progressives can...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran has long championed the cause of repressed Muslims worldwide, an often vocal stance that has underpinned the Islamic Republic’s self-proclaimed leadership role in the Muslim world. But Iran has willfully ignored the ordeal of more than 1.5 million Uighur Muslims now confined by China in controversial “vocational training” camps, a silence that has spoken volumes about Beijing’s growing influence over Tehran. Iran’s support for persecuted Shiite Muslim groups reaches far and wide, from repressed Shiites in Sunni-governed Bahrain, to the Houthis waging war in Yemen, to the  pro-Iranian Islamic Movement in Nigeria which seeks to establish an Islamic state and whose rebel logo includes a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s carpet industry, once a rich trademark of Persian culture and a key source of non-oil and gas export revenues, is coming unraveled under the double whammy of US sanctions and a Covid-caused recession. Without meaningful government relief and investment, the fast-fading export industry that normally employs 2.5 million people and provides livelihoods in associated businesses to as many as 10 million will soon be decisively overtaken by rival nations’ wares in regional and global markets, experts and analysts warn. Local media reports suggest as many as one million Iranians involved in the rug industry have already lost their jobs. Iran’s carpet industry survived the chaos that...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: In the midst of a full-blown national economic crisis, the latest polemics of a powerful hardline preacher have served as a distraction for Iranians, with many caught by surprise and others taking to social media to poke fun at the fundamentalist cleric’s rabble-rousing. Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday prayer leader of the holy city of Mashhad and the representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Razavi Khorasan province, unveiled his novel prescription for social and family life when he said in recent remarks, “unfortunately, as a result of the impact of the Western culture, the spouses call each other by first names at home.” He went on to theorize that “in the first layer of...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: The coming weekend marks the Persian New Year. Nowruz, or New Day, heralds the advent of spring and jubilantly injects life into the frozen veins of nature. Even those who don’t celebrate it agree that this festival is an exceptional opportunity to enshrine the rejuvenation of the Earth after a chilly hibernation and embrace sights in our surroundings that manifest themselves on scarce occasions like the vernal equinox, which coincides with Nowruz this Saturday, March 20. It is true that Nowruz was originally the New Year festival of Iranians and a cohort of countries in Central Asia and the Middle East, but thanks to recognition by the United Nations and UNESCO, its venerable pedigree has been...

Kourosh Ziabari - Responsible Statecraft: For nearly two decades now, Iran’s nuclear program has represented a global concern debated in the media on a daily basis, and world leaders have made every effort to find a way out of this intractable dilemma. Iran insists on the peaceful nature of its nuclear program, remains adamant that it should be entitled to enrich uranium unrestrictedly, has consistently worked on the development of advanced centrifuges and heavy-water reactors, and at times has been accused of covering-up its past nuclear activities. Lamentably, the sizeable investment Iran has made on its nuclear mission has yielded little concrete outcomes its people can discern other than underpinning an international...