Leave Iran to the Iranians
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
As experts clash on how to deal with Iran’s turmoil, Leslie H. Gelb says Obama is right to keep his distance—this is what Iranians want, and they have smart, sophisticated reasons for it.
Memo from the Streets of Tehran, Part III
Parvez Sharma is the director and producer of A Jihad for Love. He also writes for The Huffington Post and is a speaker on Islam and sexuality.
Arash Aryan has not been silent or quiet. He has been on the streets and with a power and poignancy that is now becoming familiar. Parvez Sharma presents his latest report from Tehran, today on the day everything might have changed.
Stay Out of It, Obama
Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for talkingpointsmemo.com.
Roja Heydarpour is an editor at The Daily Beast. She has reported for the The New York Times and The Times-Tribune.
Critics have urged Obama to "go green," to side with Iranian protesters more vocally. But in an exclusive interview, one of Iran's most high-profile opposition clerics, Mohsen Kadivar, tells The Daily Beast that the reformers don't want any help. He also says the protests are about the presidential election, not about overthrowing the ayatollah.
Eyewitness Account: "My Brother Was Beaten"
Parvez Sharma is the director and producer of A Jihad for Love. He also writes for The Huffington Post and is a speaker on Islam and sexuality.
As violence flares in Tehran, The Daily Beast's Parvez Sharma spoke over Yahoo! Chat with a young Iranian journalist and Mousavi supporter who says she was arrested at the protests today and released. She describes the fresh violence--including a family member who was beaten, and shares extremely graphic video of a young women who was shot. Below is the unedited transcript of their instant message conversation, which took place at 9:36 p.m. in Tehran (1:06 p.m. EST). Her full name has been omitted from the transcript to protect her safety – we are identifying her only as “NS”. CAUTION: The video link included in this is extremely graphic and disturbing.
Marked for Death by Twitter
Eric Pape has reported on Europe and the Mediterranean region for Newsweek Magazine since 2003. He is co-author of the graphic novel Shake Girl, which was inspired by one of his articles. He has written for the Los Angeles Times magazine, Spin, Vibe, Le Courrier International, Salon, Los Angeles and others. He is based in Paris.
Social-networking sites are being celebrated as conduits for information out of Iran. But with the supreme leader vowing to punish dissidents, these digital footprints could prove deadly.
Memo From the Streets of Tehran, Part II
Parvez Sharma is the director and producer of A Jihad for Love. He also writes for The Huffington Post and is a speaker on Islam and sexuality.
As demonstrations challenge Iranian authority, Parvez Sharma sends a new on-the-ground dispatch via a friend enmeshed in the Tehran protests: Some are fearful, but there’s a sense in the crowd that victory is within reach.
Iranians to Obama: Hush
Azadeh Moaveni has reported on Iran for Time magazine and other publications since 1999. She is the author of Lipstick Jihad, the co-author of Shirin Ebadi’s memoir Iran Awakening, and most recently, Honeymoon in Tehran.
Lipstick Jihad author Azadeh Moaveni says protesters in Tehran have a surprising view on Obama's silence: Keep it up.
Obama's Twitter Strategy
Ariel Kastner is the Publications Manager and a Research Analyst at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings.
While the Obama administration has been relatively quiet on Iran, the State Department has been promoting democracy by protecting demonstrators’ access to Web sites like Twitter.
What Iranians See on TV
Alex Vatanka is a senior Middle East analyst for Jane’s Information Group.
When Iranians turn to state-owned media, they get "reporting" far detached from their own experience. Alex Vatanka, a Middle East analyst for Jane's, on the bias and Iranians' alternative options.
Why Obama Won't Talk Tough
Richard Wolffe is Daily Beast columnist and an award-winning journalist, and senior strategist at Public Strategies. He covered the entire length of Barack Obama's presidential campaign for Newsweek magazine. His book, Renegade: The Making of a President, was published by Crown in June.
The easiest way to demonize the reformers in Iran, a senior administration official tells The Daily Beast's Richard Wolffe, is for the U.S. to align with them. Inside the Obama's PR strategy.
Why Iran's Rulers Fear a Revote
Douglas E. Schoen is a founding partner for Penn, Schoen & Berland and a co-inventor of overnight polling. He is the author of The Power of the Vote: Electing Presidents, Overthrowing Dictators, and Promoting Democracy Around the World and Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System.
History and numbers explain the Iranian regime’s fear of a revote, says pollster Douglas Schoen, who has seen three similarly fraudulent elections abroad. Mousavi would crush Ahmadinejad in a rematch.
Memo From the Streets of Tehran
Parvez Sharma is the director and producer of A Jihad for Love. He also writes for The Huffington Post and is a speaker on Islam and sexuality.
As Iranians dispute the results of Friday's election, Parvez Sharma sends The Daily Beast an on-the-ground dispatch written by a friend enmeshed in the Tehran protests.
How Arab Media Is Covering Iran
Salameh Nematt is an international writer for The Daily Beast. He is the former Washington bureau chief for the international Arab daily Al Hayat, where he reported on US foreign policy, the war in Iraq, and the US drive for democratization in the broader Middle East. He has also written extensively on regional and global energy issues and their political implications.
As democratic media back Iran's opposition, it’s a different story in authoritarian regimes. Salameh Nematt reports on journalists remaining in Iran and the overall political news war.
How Iran's Hackers Killed Big Brother
Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media studies at The New School University and producer and correspondent for the PBS Frontline Digital Nation project, is the author of numerous books, including Cyberia, ScreenAgers, Media Virus, and, most recently, Life Inc., released this month by Random House.
Tehran's streets may be bloody, says Douglas Rushkoff, but the opposition has won the digital war. The battleground: Facebook and Twitter. The weapons: bandwidth and hacking. The prize: the end of totalitarianism.
The Media Can Profit from Twitter's Big Week
Larry Kramer is senior adviser at Polaris Venture Partners, a venture-capital firm. He served as the first president of CBS Digital Media. Prior to joining CBS, Kramer was chairman, CEO, and founder of MarketWatch Inc. Kramer spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor at the San Francisco Examiner, the Washington Post, and the Times of Trenton.
The micro-blogging service is leading the Iran election coverage and is even breaking big sports news. But its newfound dominance doesn’t have to be bad news for traditional news organizations, says Larry Kramer.
Whose Side Is Obama on?
Reihan Salam is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the co-author of Grand New Party.
During the campaign, Obama pledged to meet any world leader "without preconditions." Now that Iran is in turmoil, he needs to go back on his word.
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
Gerald Posner is The Daily Beast's Chief Investigative Reporter. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published in October. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
Partner Sites: Expedia| Hotels| Hotwire| Urbanspoon| Vimeo
