After much struggle with censorship and pressure, he finally left Iran in 2010
Iran: A Visionary Life to Remember
Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – My brother Mohammad Amini was a revolutionary and an early leader of the Confederation of Iranian Students, perhaps the largest student movement in the world. He was a Maoist who over time turned into a nationalist. Our parents were married by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then a simple […]
Rashid Khalidi on the Gaza Ceasefire: The veil that has hidden the true nature of the Zionist project was shredded for good
If I must die, You must live To tell my story To sell my things To buy a piece of cloth And some strings…. – Refaat Alareer, Palestinian writer, poet, professor and activist, killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza on December 6, 2023 Interview by Fariba Amini Professor Rashid Ismail Khalidi is the […]
A Dangerous Profession, from Palestine to Iran: When Journalists are the Target
“Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.” – ― Stefan Zweig Throughout wars and even in the calmest situations, journalists, especially independent ones, have always been the target of their governments and their cadres. In this war, which is not […]
It is Genocide: Omer Bartov Interview
Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Fariba Amini writes: Omer Bartov recently wrote an Op-ed piece in the New York Times in which he described the war on Gaza as a genocide. His piece garnered a great deal of praise but also criticism by scholars and journalists who reject the term “genocide” for what […]
A Middle East without Nukes
“You can’t bomb away the knowledge” -John Kerry Marg bar means death to… It was chanted after the hostage crisis. Marg bar America. Death to America. Yet, many of the Islamic Republic children came to America to study and prosper. Then it was Marg bar Israel. Death to Israel. Why? Does the Islamic Republic just […]
An Iranian-American View: Tehran will Never Surrender
Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. –Rumi Like the rest of the world, I got up on Friday morning June 13 to hear the shocking news. It was truly Friday the 13th. When asked sometimes before where I am originally from, I used to […]
Russia in Iran: The Times and Life of Diplomat Ivan Jakolevich Korostovetz
“Russia’s role in Iranian history since the nineteenth century is well known, to be sure. But especially for the period until World War I, it tends to be narrated in a patterned and somewhat reductionist manner, typically through the lens of the ‘Great Game,’ with Iran a mere buffer state between Russia and Great Britain, […]
Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the US: Why Diplomats Matter
George B. Lambrakis was a State Department Foreign Service officer from 1957 to 1985, after two years with USIS in Vietnam and Laos. He served in Iran during the Islamic Revolution 1978-1979. He is interviewed by Fariba Amini. Fariba Amini: The first Trump administration abandoned the JCPOA. Why do you think now in his second […]








