Posts tagged : "Middle East"

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: After Iran shot down a $220-million US unmanned aerial vehicle over the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, President Donald Trump said the United States was “cocked and loaded” to retaliate. He apparently rescinded his decision only 10 minutes before the attack was to be carried out, after his military advisers told him 150 people may die in such a strike. President Trump is being censured by critics for not having a clear and robust Middle East strategy. He is said to only increase the likelihood of an unwanted, new military confrontation in an already volatile region, resulting from miscalculations that appear to be inevitable when tensions run high. In a recent op-ed, the former German Foreign...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Three months after flash floods submerged large swaths of Iran and nearly two years after a massive earthquake devastated its western Kermanshah Province, the suffering of crisis-stricken Iranians seems to have been consigned to oblivion.  Paralyzed by crushing US sanctions, the government of President Hassan Rouhani has performed poorly in delivering aid to people living in the affected areas, and construction efforts have been dismally sluggish as thousands of Iranians are still homeless and living in shelters and makeshift camps. No where is that suffering more obvious than Iran’s already neglected minority regions, which have born the brunt of climate change and snowballing natural...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Ever since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been at the center stage of controversy — from the embassy siege to the nuclear deal. Today, the US government considers the country to be the world’s “leading state sponsor of terrorism” due to funding networks and operational cells globally. So, it’s not surprising that coverage of Iran in Western media is far from positive. Yet many independent journalists and writers have traveled to the country to see the daily lives of Iranians firsthand. As they’ve discovered, life is dramatically different from what Hollywood and Fox News tell us. One of these journalists is Stephan Orth, a German author who wrote “Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a...

Lobelog - Kourosh Ziabari: If you’ve ever wondered how historical realities can be sacrificed and manipulated in the service of myopic political goals, there is a great example for you to follow in your daily roundup of international news offered by the mainstream media. While reading through coverage of current Middle Eastern affairs in international newspapers, magazines, and news websites, it’s very common for readers to come across the words “the Gulf.” Many people recognize what “the Gulf” signifies, but many others don’t know and get perplexed and still others ignore the vague reference while reading. Basically, the phrase is meant to denote the body of water separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula. By...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: As the Iranian economy crumbles under US sanctions, scammers are exploiting the popularity of state-backed game shows to swindle the middle class. For Iman Fard, a 30-year-old computer engineer in the northern Caspian coastal city of Rasht, it all started with a phone call from an unknown number. “They called me around 9 PM, saying that they represented a radio station in Tehran. They said I was one of 14 people who were chosen by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology of Iran to receive a cash prize of 50 million rials ($455) for my reasonable and responsible use of my cell phone,” he told Asia Times. “They said the ministry wanted to award me because I don’t use my cell...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: In the run-up to this year’s general election, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that he would annex large areas of the West Bank if he secured victory. The fulfillment of his promise — assuming Netanyahu wins the re-run scheduled for September after failing to form a government earlier this year — is considered by many to be yet another nail in the coffin of the elusive two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United States has played a mediating role between the two warring parties, but its strong alignment with Israel has stripped it of credibility in the eyes of the Palestinians. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the US government has...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: In the run-up to this year’s general election, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that he would annex large areas of the West Bank if he secured victory. The fulfillment of his promise — assuming Netanyahu wins the re-run scheduled for September after failing to form a government earlier this year — is considered by many to be yet another nail in the coffin of the elusive two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United States has played a mediating role between the two warring parties, but its strong alignment with Israel has stripped it of credibility in the eyes of the Palestinians. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the US government has...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: People of Iran took to the streets earlier this month to participate in demonstrations marking Jerusalem Day. Falling on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, it is an occasion when Muslims are invited to show solidarity with the Palestinian people in their fight against Israeli occupation. Although the Iranian government invests heavily on propaganda for the annual occasion, and while the country’s state-run media give extensive coverage to rallies on this day, not all Iranians agree the issue of Palestine should be a priority for the Islamic Republic at a time their country is bearing the brunt of grueling economic sanctions by the United States. Masoumeh Sharifi, a 60-year-old mother of...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading exporter of crude oil and one of the top 20 major economies of the world. It’s the largest economy of the Middle East and the fastest growing healthcare market among the GCC countries. The largest state in Western Asia, the kingdom is the biggest Middle East trading partner of the United States and Britain. Despite huge strides towards becoming a stable economy, Saudi Arabia has been lagging behind for many years in addressing shortcomings in its human rights record. Reports about the suppression of civil rights activists, journalists, clerics, religious minorities and women emerge from Saudi Arabia frequently. Over the past months, the Arab monarchy has been under fire...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran on Monday marked the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, when the Pahlavi dynasty collapsed, paving the way for the founding of the Islamic Republic. Around the world, pundits and academics are passionately debating the events of 1979 in think-tanks, universities, and media outlets. The US government will convene a conference this week attacking the Islamic Republic from Warsaw, Poland. And the Iranian government is marking the anniversary in its own way: bombarding citizens with programs on state television about the breakthroughs of the Islamic Republic, inaugurating roads, hospitals and schools across the country and organizing feasts and speeches in villages, towns and large cities...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: The rivalry between Iran and the Arab world is nothing new. The 1979 revolution turned the previously friendly ties between Iranians and Arabs into a situation of regional competition and proxy conflicts. The most bitter moment came in the 1980s with the Iran-Iraq War, which claimed over a million lives. There have been points in recent history when Iran held amicable relations with Arab countries, especially under the presidencies of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. The presidency of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the moment that Iranian-Arab ties hit an all-time low and that post-1979 rivalries turned into outright hostility. In 2016, a group of religious extremists attacked and...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Since 1948, thousands of news articles, hundreds of hours of TV and radio programs, tens of books and countless research papers have been produced about the root causes, ramifications and human cost of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, several questions remain unanswered and, as time goes by, it becomes more evident that the international community is either unable or not determined to find a solution to the crisis. Noam Chomsky, a distinguished American linguist and political commentator, once said that Israel’s actions in Palestine are “much worse than apartheid” in South Africa. Desmond Tutu, the South African cleric and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has also said that Israel’s...