Iranian protesters run from tear gas fired by security forces in an opposition rally in Tehran on Thursday.
The Thugs Who Lead Iran's Supreme Leader
Gary Sick served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and is the author of two books on U.S.-Iranian relations. Mr. Sick is a captain (ret.) in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa and the Mediterranean.
Iran's supreme leader may have the most exalted title, but Gary Sick says the Islamic republic's real engine is the Revolutionary Guard. They run the economy, own major industries, and brutalize their foes-and Khamenei almost never contradicts them.
Use Islam to End the Iranian Regime
Nazee Moinian is a consultant on Iran who most recently worked at the Council of Foreign Relations on the Middle East and a graduate at SIPA at Columbia University.
Thirty years ago, Iranians used Islam as a catalyst to overthrow the shah. Nazee Moinian, who lived through that revolution, on how the protesters on the streets of Tehran can use religion to bring down the current leadership.
Iran's Exiled Queen Speaks
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As protesters flood Iran's streets, Farah Pahlavi-the deposed empress-recalls the lessons of the 1979 uprising that led to her husband's painful exile. A conversation with The Daily Beast.
Former Iran Hostage: This Isn't a Revolution
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.
Moorhead Kennedy was taken hostage in Iran in 1979 and watched the government crumble. He tells The Daily Beast's Benjamin Sarlin about why regime change is unlikely this time around.
What I Saw at the Revolution
Porochista Khakpour was born in Tehran and raised in Los Angeles. Her debut novel Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove/Atlantic) is out in paperback. She is a visiting assistant professor of English at Bucknell and can be found at porochistakhakpour.com.
Thirty years after the Shah left Iran, Tehran-born novelist Porochista Khakpour recalls the Ten Days of Dawn.
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.
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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.
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