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Calm Down
Podcast This morning I sent a friend a short video. No note, no comment, nothing. In it Navīd Wahrāmān, a Pakistani writer, asks whether the Iranian diaspora’s hatred of Islam is justified. Pakistan had Zia-ul-Haq making prayer compulsory in government offices, and Afghanistan has a Taliban he calls less tolerant than the Islamic Republic, and… — read more
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Thirty Days
Podcast We use the same platforms. Beyond that we have almost nothing in common, and the difference is not one of opinion. When I write about Iranian politics I am writing from somewhere. I have read the material and taught it for years, and I hold degrees in it. The positions I take are… — read more
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Far From the Mast
Podcast On the mast at Kuhestak, the map that put Tehran under a blast radius, and the test Iran International will not take A telecommunications mast stood near the shoreline at Kuhestak, in Sirik county, on the Hormozgan coast. On the evening of 1 September it was struck and came down across the road. A… — read more
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Borrowed Eyes
Podcast On the two machines that manufacture Iran, the eighteen years that keep me from checking, and what Yaser Mirdamadi found when he went back. Fourth in the Narrating Iran series, drawn from Yaser Mirdamadi’s account of his return and argued by Daryoush Mohammad Poor I write about Iran from a position that is not… — read more
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The Ordinary Apocalypse
Podcast On Crossing Borders, Hearing Bombs, and the Stubborn Normality of a Nation at War Based on a first-hand wartime account from Iran by Kazeroun (@mkazeroun) on X “The evidence for a nation’s endurance is not found in its monuments but in the behaviour of its people when the monuments are burning.” The Decision to… — read more
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Observations from Inside the War
Podcast Image credit: Photo by Iranian Red Crescent / UPI A Witness Account from the Interior of a Nation at War By Ali Abdi, revised narrative by Daryoush Mohammad Poor “The truth is that the beginning of this path lies not outside us, but within us.” — Ali Abdi ◆ ◆ ◆ I. The Landscape… — read more
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While You Celebrate
PodcastA VOICE FROM THE FIRE: What the Diaspora Doesn’t Want to Hear “They killed 168 children in a school. They hit the school twice. TWICE.” These aren’t statistics from a news ticker. These are the words of a man whose voice cracks between fury and grief, who paid seven million tomans—money he doesn’t have—for a… — read more
