Offbeat

            To mark President Hassan Rouhani’s first 100 days in power, his supporters posted a music video that appears to be inspired by President Obama’s 2008 “Yes We Can” video. It is especially striking because music generally and female performers specifically were banned after the 1979…
             The new diplomatic initiative between Iran and the world’s six major powers has inspired cynical political cartoonists on all sides. But the sharpest cartoons have run in the Iranian and American press. They reflect longstanding suspicions between the two nations, which have not had…
             Tehran has a launched sophisticated new website, NuclearEnergy.ir, to convince the world – in English – that its nuclear energy program is both peaceful and necessary for modern development, despite Iran’s vast oil and gas resources. The Islamic Republic’s ambitious public diplomacy…
            Iranian suspicion about the United States has been splashed across billboards and spray-painted on public walls ever since the 1979 revolution. But anti-American art has actually now become a source of dispute within Iran’s government—and maybe a sign of changing times.            …
David Michel       Iran faces growing environmental challenges that are now more perilous to the country’s long-term stability than either foreign adversaries or domestic political struggles. More than two-thirds of the country’s land—up to 118 million hectares—is rapidly turning into desert, Iran…
Semira Nikou              The voice of Ali Larijani, Iran’s parliament speaker, disrupted our dinner party.             We left our plates filled with fruits and nuts to huddle around the television, as the speaker read the names of…
Robin Wright               I had breakfast with new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani this morning. He is personable and a striking departure from President Ahmadinejad. He entered the room with presidential flair; he wore a white turban and robes. (I had been early so I had to go through both…
            In an all-time first for Iranian diplomacy, new Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif has been chronicling his visit to New York on his Facebook page for Iranians back home. The following translations by USIP's Maral Noori are Zarif's accounts of meetings at the United Nations. Excerpts…
            On September 4, President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif used Twitter to wish a happy new year to the world’s Jews. “As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah,” tweeted Rouhani. Iran is home to…
      On August 30, Iran's new foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif posted an essay on his personal Facebook page strongly condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria. But he also challenged the international response -- and hypocrisy -- in light of the world's lack of action in the 1980s when…