Why Iranian Dissidents Support the Nuclear Deal—In Their Own Words

Mahmoud-Dolatabadi
Iranian writer Mahmoud Dolatabadi, author of such books as The Colonel, which has been banned in Iran. (International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran)

In my new article for In These Times magazine I discuss the important International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran report High Hopes, Tempered Expectations: Views from Iran on the Nuclear Negotiations, which features interviews with an array of Iranians—former political prisoners, filmmakers, political scientists, civil rights lawyers, playwrights, journalists, actors, economists, novelists, publishers, theater directors (some of them belonging to two or more of these categories, former political prisoner being the most common)—about the nuclear agreement.

Go here to read the article. If you tweet it, please give the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran a shout-out (@ICHRI).

Author: Danny Postel

I'm a writer, editor, and researcher. I'm currently Politics Editor of New Lines Magazine. Previously I was Assistant Director of the Center for International & Area Studies at Northwestern University and Associate Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver. I'm the author of Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2006) and co-editor (with Nader Hashemi) of three books: The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future (Melville House, 2010), The Syria Dilemma (MIT Press, 2013), and Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (Hurst/OUP, 2017). My writing has appeared in The American Prospect, Boston Review, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, Critical Inquiry, Dædalus (the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences), Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, the Deusto Journal of Human Rights, Dissent, Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, In These Times, Middle East Policy, Middle East Report (MERIP), The Nation, New Politics, the New York Times, The Progressive, Salmagundi, and the Washington Post, among other publications. My work has been translated into Arabic, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Spanish. I taught English as a Foreign Language at St. Augustine College, the Latino Outreach Program of National Louis University, and the Howard Area Community Center (1993-1998), taught Spanish at St. Tarcissus Elementary School, now part of Pope Francis Global Academy (1995-1999), was an editor at Encyclopædia Britannica (1999-2001), a staff writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education (2001-2003), a visiting instructor in the journalism program at Columbia College Chicago (2004), Senior Editor of openDemocracy magazine (2004-2007), Communications Coordinator for the organization Interfaith Worker Justice (2007-2011), Editor of The Common Review, the magazine of the Great Books Foundation (2010-2011), and Communications Specialist for Stand Up! Chicago, a coalition of grassroots groups and labor unions in Chicago (2011-2012).

One thought on “Why Iranian Dissidents Support the Nuclear Deal—In Their Own Words”

  1. one says “We hope an agreement is reached and that it is signed, so that our nation can take a breath after all this prolonged pressure.” Of course, the Syrian people (and the Lebanese and Iraqis and Yemenis) suffering Iranian occupation and sectarian expansionism, facing Iranian-backed death squads and jihadist militia, are guaranteed to not receive a single breath now that the Iranian state will have more money to spend on its imperialism. Sad to see almost every article on this topic ignore Iran’s crimes against Arab countries – far more damaging to regional and world peace that the squabble between Netanyahu and Iran’s leaders. Hanin Ghaddar is perhaps prescient, here https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/565670-the-iran-deal-the-shiites-and-demography

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