The US, Iran and the Shifting Sands of Middle East Peace. To sort... Iran Opens Its Fist by Gary Sick. He came to New York. He saw almost everyone. Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s new president, may not have conquered, but at least he seems to have persuaded John Kerry and Barack Obama that his proposals for negotiating an end to the US-Iran conflict deserve to be taken seriously. When President Obama picked up his phone in the Oval Office on Friday to bid farewell to President Rouhani with the Persian phrase Khodahafez (“God be with you”), there was the sense that a tectonic shift between Washington and Tehran was taking place.
The Rouhani blitz was regarded by many cynics as nothing but a charm offensive. Of course, in one sense that is what it was. I watched him in the two meetings that I attended and in most of his televised appearances. Rouhani is a man of considerable gravitas. He was national security adviser to presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami, and he has been the personal representative of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for nearly a quarter of a century. The Iranian Economy. Turkey. Iran. Debating the Impact of Sanctions. Iran. Iran. Managing Oil Resources and Economic Diversification in Iran - SOAS Research Online. Salehi-Isfahani_DI-Working-Paper-3_Iran-Youth-Crisis. Iran in World Politics... A “Persian” Iran?: Challenging the Aryan Myth and Persian Ethnocentrism « Ajam Media Collective. Over the next few months, Ajam Media Collective will host a series that focuses on and describes various elements of the cultural, ethnic and linguistic mosaic that we refer to collectively as Iran.
This is Part 1 in that series. I am often confronted by the question “Are you Iranian or Persian, and what’s the difference?” And it has become something of a bonding ritual among Iranians I know to discuss the various ways in which we answer that question. For many years, I answered that there existed little difference between the two besides a political connotation, “Persian” being the adjective of choice for those who avoided any connection to the Islamic Republic. Noted Iranian comedian Maz Jobrani, similarly, points to the historically alluring and exotic sound of “Persian,” as well as its connection to [Persian] cats and rugs, in order to explain why many people prefer to use this word instead of “Iranian.” On some level, I had always known Iran was not a “Persian” country. Like this: 2013 Iranian Presidential Elections. 2013 Iranian Presidential Elections.
Iran - Resources. MENA: basic reading... Egypt. Iran. Iran: Subsidy Reform amid Regional Turmoil. Milad Avazbeigi Journal Article March 3, 2011 Author: Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar (Fall 2013), Middle East Initiative Belfer Center Programs or Projects: Dubai Initiative On a chilly day in February, while thousands of Iranians swarmed Tehran’s Eghelab Avenue in support of Iran’s Green Movement, a small but noisy crowd gathered just a few blocks north with a different motive. On December 19, 2010, the government ended the decades-long subsidy program for bread and energy products like gasoline, and replaced it with direct payments of about $45 per month per individual. The recent subsidy reform is the single most important market reform program undertaken since the unification of the exchange rates under President Rafsanjani in the 1990s.
Two features of the program have political salience, prices of bread and all energy products were increased to market levels in one shot, and at the same time money was transferred back to people’s bank accounts. Iran: Subsidy Reform amid Regional Turmoil. Iran Opens Its Fist by Gary Sick. 2013 Iranian Presidential Elections. Understanding-Iran-Under-Sanctions-Oil-and-the-National-Budget. Iran. Middle East / North Africa. Middle East / North Africa. Iran - Reading.