A range of US policies have been deliberately designed to provoke an Iranian response, writes Phyllis Bennis.
Iran
Neither the United States nor Iran really wants war, we are told, because the reality of such a conflict is too horrific to contemplate. But the Gulf tanker crisis and the US response shows that we are alarmingly close to open hostilities.
It is true that there are voices in the US defence establishment calling for restraint. It appears to be the case, too, that the Iranian government is operating on the assumption that the US does not want a war. But there are several reasons why such assumptions are not a sound basis for judgement.
Protests are continuing throughout Iran by teachers, nurses, labourers, retirees, oil industry workers, bazaar traders and shopkeepers, truck drivers, farmers, the unemployed, students, and other sectors, writes Minna Langeberg.
The current wave of protests continue those from December, which were brutally suppressed by the regime. They signal the deep crisis of legitimacy of the regime, as expressed by one of the most enduring slogans that emerged, 鈥淔undamentalists, reformists, the game is over鈥.
As the brutal murder of a Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi regime dominates headlines, Khury Petersen-Smith takes a look at Show the US is backing Saudi war crimes in Yemen.
Twenty days after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) bombed a school bus full of children in Yemen in August, United States Defense Secretary James Mattis hosted officials from the two US allies at the Pentagon.
What is happening in Syria? More than half a million people have died since the war in Syria began in 2011. Five million Syrians have sought refuge abroad and more than 6 million have been internally displaced.
In recent weeks, a new wave of protests and demonstrations in the streets, civil disobedience and strikes in factories has been sweeping all over the cities and towns of Iran, writes Reza Akbari.
This follows the protest wave in mid-January, when the people, infuriated by the high cost of living, corruption, nepotism, inequality and injustice flooded into the streets, crying out their discontent and anger.
Emma Wilde Botta聽looks at US President Donald Trump鈥檚 latest effort to 鈥渂reak the regime鈥 in Iran 鈥 by renouncing the nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor.
Donald Trump鈥檚 announcement that the US will withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose economic sanctions will intensify geopolitical conflicts in the region. It threatens to spark a wider war, engulfing the region and possibly the world.
Human rights advocates expressed outrage on March 13 after US President Donald Trump聽聽deputy director Gina Haspel to be the next CIA director 鈥 despite her leading role in聽聽where detainees were systematically and gruesomely abused, writes Jessica Corbett for
The following statement by a group of international socialist feminists in solidarity with Iranian women鈥檚 struggles was initiated by the on February 10.
The Socialist Alliance in Australia is among the signatories.
Frieda Afary is a US-based Iranian socialist and a member of the recently formed Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists. She spoke to鈥檚 January 26 show on Melbourne community radio station 3CR, on the significance of the recent protests in Iran. Her comments are abridged below and edited for clarity.
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Mass protests have been taking place across Iran since December 28, 2017, despite heavy security and state repression.
The protests are against widespread poverty, the skyrocketing cost of living, vast official corruption and brutal political repression.
The demonstrations that erupted in Iran on December 28 and continued for days appeared to have died down. There have been clashes with the repressive forces, and more than 20 people have been killed and many arrested (there are widely divergent figures).
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