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A confidential briefing by the Foreign Office cautioned that there “would be a strong possibility of retaliation, e.g. over oil supplies” should the shah be given sanctuary in the UK. It continued: “We are convinced that, if the shah came to Britain, there would be physical retaliation against British subjects in Iran.”

Today, support for the ongoing revolution in Iran can and should become a vast international movement. March 8th is International Women’s Day, which this year bears the mark of solidarity with women and people in Iran in the struggle to topple the Islamic regime. We call on women’s rights activists and organisations to express their solidarity with the women’s movement in Iran, while remembering Neda Agha Soltan as the symbol of the revolutionary movement against the Islamic Republic. March 8th this year is the day of solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran for freedom!

What level of social insanity is it that persuades people to imagine that a single individual has the power to undo what centuries of entrenched, organised and determined vested interests (that have not gone away) have put in place?

It’s not altogether clear from this physical distance who’s been protesting this past month, nor can we know the protesters’ composition with any precision. But over 70 million people live in Iran, and 50 million went to the polls on June 12. Analytical attention has zeroed in on the protesting minority. We are instinctively attracted, like hunting beasts, to flashing movements, the brilliant spectacle of mobilization. One would hope, from certain quarters, for something slightly better

The British Embassy’s Iranian staff are caught in a tricky position. They remain Iranian citizens living in Iran, yet serving a foreign government, leading to suspicion about their loyalty, and as they are not diplomats they enjoy none of the immunity that such a status would afford them

It’s of course a question of solidarity. But solidarity is different from cheer-leading, the Party Line isn’t always the correct one, and leftists seem to have gotten taken for a real ride. Not the outcome anyone wished

Whatever the outcome, it is vitally important to keep in mind that we are witnessing a great emancipatory event which doesn’t fit the frame of the struggle between pro-Western liberals and anti-Western fundamentalists. If our cynical pragmatism will make us lose the capacity to recognize this emancipatory dimension, then we in the West are effectively entering a post-democratic era, getting ready for our own Ahmadinejads. Italians already know his name: Berlusconi. Others are waiting in line

Iran is currently in the grip of a new and strong political movement. While this movement proves that Ahmadinejad’s populist techniques of deception no longer work inside Iran, it seems they are still effective outside the country. This is mainly due to thirty years of isolation and mutual mistrust between Iran and the West which has turned my country into a mysterious phenomenon for outsiders. In this piece I will try to confront some of the mystifications and misunderstandings produced by the international media in the last week

Any soldier who helps with the execution is rewarded with two days holiday. There is so much competition to do this that the junior soldiers never get to do it. If, for example, eight people executed, six or seven soldiers are required for duties. The chair has to be set up, and the rope has to be fastened around the neck, and someone must pull the chair. And someone has to put the dead body in the bag. You cannot imagine how I felt as I watched the soldiers being eager to do these things

Whether they feel this is a “revolution” is an issue for debate. Do they want to overthrow Ahmadinejad or the Ayatollah? What is clear is that they feel the democracy they were offered was ersatz. That the powers that be (in this case, the incumbent) held an election they’d already determined the result for and took the people along for a ride to make it look good

Kourosh Ziabari talks to Professor Noam Chomsky about the fraught relationship between his country, Iran, and the United States

Ahmadreza Tavassoli talks to Iranian scientist and MIT professor Dara Entekhabi about the major problems facing the world’s environment, the way out of the mess, and the prospects for the Iranian scientific community.