Author: Shay Khatiri

Portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on an Iranian bank note. Shutterstock The good thing about octogenarians is that so many lose their filter. That holds true even in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Consider the latest interview that Mohsen Rafiqdoust, minister of the Revolutionary Guards from 1982 to 1988, gave with Didban Iran. Rafiqdoust has…

Iranian missiles are displayed outside a military museum in Tehran. Shutterstock On March 2, 2025, Iran’s parliament sacked Minister of Economy and Financial Affairs Abdolnasser Hemmati. His firing is emblematic of a major fissure in Iranian politics that many journalists and diplomats ignore. While Western officials obsess about the supposed competition between regime reformers and…

Missile warheads are shown against the flag of Turkey. Shutterstock Middle Eastern fortunes have changed dramatically over recent months. Iran is down and, especially after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey is up. This may be a net positive for now, but not for long if Turkey’s current trajectory continues. Michael Rubin recently…

The national flags of Syria and Iran. Shutterstock Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster may have been a blow to the Islamic Republic of Iran, but Tehran has yet to give up seeking influence in Syria. For the past 14 years, Islamic Republic officials and media vilified the anti-Assad opposition as tools of the United States…

An Iranian Jewish woman prays at the tomb of the heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther in Hamedan, Iran. Shutterstock On November 4, 2024, Iran executed 20-year-old Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian Jew, two years after his arrest for fatally stabbing Amir Shokri, an Iranian Muslim. The Iranian court ignored many exculpating factors. Ghahremani argued…