Posts tagged : "Iran"

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: When Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was running for office, he famously said in a May 2021 televised debate how much he deplored the disruption that Iranian children who play online games experience due to the nation’s poor internet infrastructure and weak signals, arguing that he had plans to boost internet connectivity if elected. He made similar remarks about his displeasure that university students are being sealed off from their peers internationally because of the country’s flawed internet services. As simplistic as his youth outreach may have been, Raisi was trying to portray himself as a politician who related to the young population’s sensitivities around sustainable internet...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: As Iran and the Taliban take cautious first steps towards formalizing relations, a new worrying wave of anti-Afghan sentiment is sweeping across Iran amid new heated calls for the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees. On April 5, an assailant stabbed two Iranian Shia clerics to death on the premises of the revered shrine of the 8th Shia Imam Reza in the pilgrimage city of Mashhad. The attacker, apparently motivated by anti-Shiite motives, was later identified as an Uzbek national who had crossed illegally into Iran last year. However, after the footage of the assault captured by pilgrims went viral on social media, many Iranians mistook the aggressor for an Afghan citizen, sparking...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the largest military attack on the European continent since World War II, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was arguably the West’s most urgent diplomatic priority. Representatives from Iran and six world powers have in recent weeks shuttled to Vienna to regenerate the 2015 nuclear deal that was shattered when then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the pact and reinstated punishing sanctions against Tehran in 2018. Now, the Tehran hardliners who once berated the deal largely because it was negotiated by the moderate president Hassan Rouhani are in charge of resurrecting the pact under the ultra-conservative Ebrahim...

Kourosh Ziabari - Foreign Policy: In a bid to shore up its wobbly legitimacy, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration is appealing to the sizable Iranian diaspora to consider returning to its ancestral homeland and contribute to Iran’s economic, social, industrial, and technological development. As the ultraconservative cleric finds his government hamstrung by its own nebulous economic and foreign-policy agendas, capitalizing on the enterprise and assets of the thriving community of Iranians abroad could serve as a handy remedy to the nation’s myriad challenges. In December 2021, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian announced the administration was preparing to submit a bill to parliament to “support...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: When Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi recently posed for a photo-op with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the top-level meeting in Moscow was trumpeted by state media as a bilateral “turning point,” “new chapter” and even “diplomatic triumph.” But a closer examination of the optics suggests something unspoken is still diplomatically amiss. Critical observers of the January 19 meeting noted that Raisi’s arrival at the Kremlin was not received by a guard of honor befitting his status as a foreign leader. In the meeting room, the two countries’ flags were not placed, which the same observers noted is a rarity for Putin’s meetings with heads of government and even a possible...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: While many international airlines start to recover after two years of Covid-induced groundings and stagnation, Iran’s beleaguered fliers are still mostly grounded. Even before the pandemic, Iran’s airlines were bypassed by professional travelers and a flight of last resort for routes that reputable world carriers didn’t serve. In 2021, the airline safety and product rating review website AirlineRatings.com identified Iran Aseman Airlines as one of the world’s six most unsafe airlines. The UK-based consultancy Skytrax had earlier named Iran Air and Mahan Air as two of the 20 worst airlines globally, measured by the quality of their services and number of accidents. When the vaunted Joint...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: One doesn’t have to be very old to recollect the emergence and blossoming of Iran’s reform movement. In the May 1997 presidential election, when many observers had reached the foregone conclusion that the establishment confidant, conservative cleric Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, would secure an easy victory courtesy of gerrymandering and voter fraud, a reformist underdog turned out to be a dark horse and baffled the world. Mohammad Khatami, who was previously minister of culture between 1982 and 1992 and little known internationally, bagged 69.6% of the votes in a presidential contest that saw a turnout of 79.92%, a figure not chronicled since the Iranian Revolution. Khatami’s ascendancy was a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: There is no shortage of critical commentary, analysis and coverage of the undemocratic practices of the Iranian government and its defiance of its international obligations. In newspapers and on cable television and online platforms, a fusillade of alarming updates is fired every day at Iran’s nuclear program, its imprisonment of journalists, political activists and dual nationals, and its regional escapades. To be sure, governance structures are flawed, social fissures are deepening rapidly, promises of adherence to human rights are mere window-dressing and, because of inveterate mismanagement, the national economy is collapsing, as are the livelihoods of millions of Iranians. Against this...

Asia Times - Kourosh Ziabari: As the Raisi administration continues to refuse to chart a clear path for the resumption of the stalled nuclear talks with world powers in Vienna, and the removal of the daunting sanctions on Iran remain improbable, things are getting worse for the average Iranian. The naked truth about the oil-rich country is the unchecked entrenchment of poverty has been worsened by the government’s soaring budget deficit and the withdrawal of foreign investors who once helped prop up different sectors of the economy. In 2019, and in a bid to incentivize the influx of foreign capital and resources into Iran, the moderate Rouhani administration proposed an initiative whereby international investors lending credit...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: When a radical vigilante rammed his vehicle into two women in the Iranian city of Urmia on August 8 after criticizing their flouting of hijab rules, local authorities promised decisive action for the assault after the assailant’s arrest. But like those before him who have assaulted and attacked Iranian women over their state of dress, he’s widely expected to walk free. The attack, which went viral on social media, has reignited debate on compulsory hijab laws, with many questioning the sustainability and practicality of the strict Islamic dress code in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s hardline approach to the hijab is distinct from almost every other major Muslim country....

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Unprecedented water shortages in Iran have sparked protests across southwestern Khuzestan that have quickly spread to other regions, a popular uprising that threatens wider stability as authorities violently crack down. Residents of Khuzestan provincial cities have taken to the streets for the past 12 days to demand a swift solution to the water crisis and resignation of local authorities who they believe are corrupt and incompetent. In a show of solidarity, people across Iran in Aligudarz, Karaj, Isfahan, Mashhad, Tabriz, Tehran, Saqqez, Zanjan and various other cities have also taken to the streets, chanting slogans decrying authorities for their perceived endemic mismanagement of Khuzestan. On...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Across Khuzestan province, the oil-rich yet ironically impoverished and underprivileged heart of Iran’s economy, resentful protesters have been dominating the streets for nearly a week, trying to voice their anger at the power outages and water-supply cuts that have traumatized their daily lives. The government has responded, expectedly, with Internet shutdowns and the use of force. Nationally, the progress of the Covid-19 inoculation program has been a failure, and while much of the world races back toward normalcy, only 2.6% of a population of 85 million have been fully vaccinated. In what construes as a national embarrassment, Iranians are flocking to neighboring Armenia, where they are offered...