Iran

Four months after Ruhollah Khomeini came to power on February 11, 1979, two delegations from the global organization of the Muslim Brotherhood arrived in Iran. According to oral accounts from Syrian opposition circles at the time, the group offered to pledge allegiance to Khomeini as the caliph of Muslims in exchange for his declaration that […]

There are many unresolved mysteries in Syrian political history. Even what has been revealed in Douglas Little’s documents or in Ambassador Hare’s correspondence warrants further research or should be compared with documents that can be found elsewhere. History possesses complexities and layers akin to mines, with the surface offering little indication of what lies beneath. […]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has yet to grasp the thread that would enable him to maintain the old regional order. Iran is no longer the same following the blows it and its proxies received before October 7, 2023. The war that has dismantled the external borders of the Iranian regime in Gaza, Lebanon, and […]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following his usual practice of seizing opportunities to convert developments into political gains that consolidate his power, is attempting to exploit the wars in Gaza and southern Lebanon by depicting them as a threat to Turkey’s very existence. This strategy serves to obscure the significant economic and social problems that […]

Wars escalate gradually, often with pre-war tensions remaining invisible. In the 1956 Suez War, for instance, the escalation spanned twenty months, beginning on February 28, 1955, with an Israeli raid on Gaza that resulted in the deaths of forty Egyptian soldiers. From that day forward, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser contemplated turning eastward, away from […]

At the beginning of his presidency, President Joe Biden seemed poised to initiate major troop withdrawals after the last withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021. Shortly thereafter, he adjusted the nature of U.S. military presence in Iraq, limiting it to an advisory role. Despite this, Biden has maintained the number of U.S. troops […]

According to the latest Pentagon’s Lead Inspector General Quarterly Report to Congress for the period of April 1 through June 30, 2024, published on August 1, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) “were further stretched by the tensions with Arab tribal fighters” in Deir ez-Zor. The U.S.-led military Coalition against ISIS also stated that while there […]

A recent report by Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights organization documenting human rights violations by the Iranian regime, shows a concerning rise in executions of minorities such as Kurds, Baloch and Azeris by the government. The Iranian regime has historically relied on executions – often still held in public spaces in town and city squares […]

In the midst of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî (Woman, Life, Freedom) protests last autumn, which were triggered by the police murder of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Jina (Mahsa) Amini, reports emerged of poisonings of schoolgirls and university students throughout wider Iran and Eastern Kurdistan (northwest Iran). In November 2022, students in Qom and Isfahan reported […]

Though not confirmed yet, Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, announced on Friday (April 28), that the quadripartite meeting involving foreign affairs ministers of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Moscow may take place in early May. Notably, his country is in the throes of holding parliamentary and presidential elections that could end the two decade-long rule […]

“The smuggling has its roots in the clumsiness of rulers who for hundreds of years have taken the thousand-mile Zagros range as the boundary between Arabia and Persia, but ignored how Kurds live on both sides.”  — Alex Perry, Outside Magazine Kolber is a Kurdish compound word composed of two words: “kol + ber,” which […]

Achieving freedom in Iran raises more questions than it answers. Is it possible to have self-determination without every ethnicity having a separate nation state? How serious are we about the liberation of national minorities and women? Could we overcome centralized domination by implementing the liberal notion of freedom understood as non-interference? Or does national and […]

In recent months, a number of devastating earthquakes have hit the four regions of Greater Kurdistan. From the wreckage of the massive February 6th earthquakes that ran across Bakur (Northern Kurdistan) and Rojava (Western Kurdistan), to smaller scale tremors reverberating across Bashur (Southern Kurdistan), to different medium scale earthquakes in Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan). Kurdistan is […]

International Women’s Day, observed annually on March 8th, honors women worldwide for their accomplishments, bravery in the pursuit of equal rights, and resistance to gender-based violence. But this year, the 2023 International Women’s Day had a special relevance in Eastern Kurdistan, Balochistan, and Ahwaz – because of the ongoing revolution taking place throughout ‘Iran’. A […]

“Although the enemy thinks their captivity will silence me, let them know that every corner of a prison cell is a library. My thoughts of freedom only expand in captivity. Doomed are those enemies who believe prison will break us.” — Zara Mohammadi, after being released (February 2023) The modern history of the Kurdish people […]

The death of a Kurdish woman, Jina (Mehsa) Amini galvanized the diverse ethno-religious groups across Iran towards an uprising that has reverberated across the globe. Jina’s death at the hands of the Iranian morality police highlighted not only the plight of women as second-class citizens across Iran, but also the deeply oppressed and persecuted nature […]

It has been broadly argued that one of the prominent and distinctive features of the recent revolutionary movement in Iran is the solidarity and unity of all Iranian peoples despite ethnic, religious, linguistic, and even gender differences under the all-encompassing umbrella of Jin Jiyan Azadî (Woman, Life, Freedom). However, the recent developments of this revolutionary […]

The death of a Kurdish woman, Jina Mehsa Amini, on 16th of September has produced one of the most powerful uprisings in Iran to date. Jina’s murder has sparked an internal dialogue in relation to Iranian identity politics, which has also spread to an international level. As protestors spread to the streets of Iran across […]