Ahmadinejad’s Call For “Compassion” is a Cynical Display, Critics Say
As the Iranian president makes a public show of Islamic virtue, it is instructive to look through the eyes of Iran’s most prominent theologians and dissenters, and to recall what actual compassion looks like.
Rage Against the Regime: Voices from the Iranian Underground Music Scene
Iran’s Green Revolt is about freedom and democracy, sure. But it usually has to take form in a particular issue or, as in the case of a growing portion of Iran’s youth, in song. Meet the resistance in the form of the underground music scene.
Misreading Neda and Judges 19: Death of Young Iranian Woman Is Not a Rallying Cry for War
Some, like Paul Wolfowitz, have criticized Obama for not responding to the Iranian election violence, symbolized by Neda, more aggressively.
Dilemmas of American Empire: Can Obama Pull Off a Game-Changer in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan?
For Obama to steer us back to the softer side of Empire, withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan (and negotiating with Iran), he’ll have to overrule his key officials, Hillary Clinton and Dennis Ross, risk alienating Israel for its own good, and stand up to bracing public attacks. And he'll need a hand from a strong, anti-imperial religious and secular peace movement.
People were glued to their Twitter feeds this week, as Iranians microblogged their updates of the civil unrest following the election. But is it possible that we’re not able to see the forest for the twee...ts?
Undemocratic Republic of Iran: How Did the Hardliners Pull Off a Coup?
What we are witnessing in Iran is a coup against elements of the establishment deemed insufficiently committed to a radical reading of Islam. Unable to handle the messy outcome of democracy is the regime in serious trouble?
Ahmadinejad Aside, Anti-Racism Conference Was Deeply Flawed
At the largely symbolic “Durban II” conference, some Islamic states and their allies are busy equating faith with race, conflating religious criticism with bigotry, and fashioning new political cudgels with which to pummel the West.
RDPulpit: Ahmadinejad Gives Another Victory to the Israeli Right
When representatives of many Arab and Muslim nations publicly applaud Ahmadinejad’s racist rant, the real losers are the Palestinians.
The Sexual Threat to Fundamentalism
Why have homosexuality and gender-bending displaced Jews and anti-Semitism as the bogeymen of fundamentalists across the globe?
Evil has been a favorite foreign policy tool for conservatives in and around the Bush Administration; problem is, there are often unintended consequences.
What do you hope to accomplish, they ask, meeting with “those people”?
In the Papal Pocket: Benedict XVI and the Press
When Pope Benedict XVI visits the United States for the first time this month, the media will tread lightly.