NM's blog

The ‘day after’ the revolution has been a temporal distortion: a prolonged present bent back toward the past. Events have appeared less as ruptures than as echoes. Instead of discrete moments of dissent, the protests of 1999, 2009, 2019, 2022, and 2026 have repeatedly reinterpreted the excesses and losses of the 1979 revolution. Likewise, the debris of the wars of 2025 and 2026 has lingered as re-inscriptions of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. In between these echoes, Iranians have found themselves in a contradictory condition, between wounds and dreams, hopes and fears, caught in a negative dialectic of origin and destiny, where both life and death are delayed.

Hanieh challenges narrow accounts of the war that reduce its significance to fluctuations in oil prices. Instead, he situates the conflict within a broader political economy of empire, tracing how the Gulf’s strategic importance lies not only in energy exports but also in its central role in global supply chains, financial markets, and emerging infrastructure corridors…  Hanieh’s central intervention is that the war should be understood not as a discrete geopolitical event but as part of a wider struggle over the organization of trade, capital flows, infrastructure, and political authority in a rapidly changing global order. 2025 saw the largest consumption of oil, gas, and coal in human history…  [R]ather than a move away from fossil fuels, we are seeing renewables layered onto an expanding hydrocarbon base.  Since the 1970s, these surpluses have largely flowed into dollar assets, Western banks, US Treasury markets, and consumption of US military hardware. Through these ...

What was Iraq before 2003? Related Arguing that Iraq experienced a half-century of democratic rule before Saddam Hussein rests primarily on the political framework established under the  Kingdom of Iraq   from 1921 to 1958. During this era, the nation operated under a constitutional monarchy featuring an elected legislature and a relatively free press, laying the groundwork for multiparty political competition.  [1, 2]  The basis for this argument relies on several key historical and political elements: Constitutional Framework:  The Iraqi Constitution of 1925 established Iraq as a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, consisting of an appointed Senate and an elected House of Representatives.  [3]  Multiparty Elections:  Between 1925 and the fall of the monarchy in 1958, Iraq held ten general parliamentary elections. These elections facilitated a multi-party system with competing factions, political parties, and independe...

Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2026 Excerpts “The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood’s capacity to mobilise support has prompted the regime to outlaw it. “We only read the Quran and talk about religion, never politics.’ The weekly meetings remain legal as long as participants avoid claiming that ‘Islam is the solution’ to the crises facing the country,”  the 50-something mother explained. “  This was one of the first slogans of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Saying it now would constitute a crime in Jordan.” “The Jordanian branch of the Brotherhood was dissolved in 2020, although it was able to continue some of its social activities. But on 23 April 2025, after the arrest of 16 people accused of planning an attack on Jordanian soil, it was banned outright and its assets confiscated, within less than ten days and without any form of trial. “The ban was officially imposed to protect the kingdom’s security. But Assem al-Omari, ...

The media manufactures discursive cover, lawfare groups weaponise legal frameworks, institutions enforce discipline, police stage public spectacles of sovereign power, and so on. This division of labour allows repression to appear diffuse, uncoordinated, even spontaneous. Yet the cumulative effect is systematic and constitutes a multi-sited assault that targets solidarity from every direction while granting each actor plausible deniability. No single institution bears full responsibility; no single hand is seen to strike the blow. This insulates each node from legal liability, public outrage, and reputational damage, allowing institutions to maintain their liberal self-images while participating in illiberal outcomes. — European Legal Support Centre ,  The Multi-Sited Repression of  Palestine Solidarity in Britain,  2026, p. 30.

An update on his case against his dismissal from a UK-funded institute in Jerusalem.

“Deep political-economic transformations created the context for the events of this month …” What is  their meaning for the future of the Iranian regime? “Roiled from within and menaced from without, what are its chances of survival?”

“ Western media are flooded with different stories about Iran . It is hardly surprising that we are once again seeing a wave of racist and deeply stupid analyses that serve the far right and erase the agency of the Iranian people. This is not the first time, and it will not be the last. The West seems incapable of looking at countries like Iran without a racist lens.”

What response is possible for society when politics has been erased? Today, Iran is trapped between two silences —the one forced from within by the regime, and the one from outside, as the world turns away from what’s happening.”

“Among all world regions, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) holds the worst record for workers’ rights. The index data by the  International Trade Union Confederation “ shows that  every country  in the MENA region has blocked the formation or membership of  independent trade unions . In other words, the legal and administrative systems in these countries are deliberately structured to prevent any form of autonomous labor organization.  95%  of countries in the region violate the right to strike, and  89%  restrict freedom of assembly and speech. Even when rights exist on paper, the actual space to exercise them is closed off. In  84%  of MENA countries, workers have  no effective access to justice —meaning that when their rights are violated, there is no real legal or institutional recourse. “In 2014, Europe had an average score of  1.84 , suggesting relatively strong protections. But by 2024, the average has fallen to...

Free jailed union leaders Solidarity with teachers Support TikTok workers

“With the destruction of the Egyptian opposition and almost daily acts of state terror against the slightest sign or gesture of dissent, a repetition of the 2011 domino effect is unlikely - at least in the short run.” Sisi’s “popularity among all social classes in Egypt, including sections of big capital, has hit rock bottom. “Unlike his predecessors,  Sisi is ruling solely by coercion and  has eviscerated the civil society  and political institutions that manufacture some necessary level of consent, which is crucial for the endurance of the regime and the state.” [I have reordered the sentences] The Egyptian regime, argues Hossam al-Hamalawy , sufferes from a crisis of hegemony, continuously dependent on foreign money and complicit in genocide. 

Algeria between hope of change and a desire to leave

“The current confrontation in Venezuela today is not between left and right.” “We are witnessing the transition from a government with authoritarian tendencies to a dictatorial regime.” “This is not a government ‘backed’ by the military, but, as Maduro himself has said, the government is led by a ‘civilian-military-police alliance’. “Those who continue to support Maduro, including parties and movements of the Sao Paulo Forum or the spokespersons of Podemos in Spain, are causing severe damage to the left in the region and the world. They are damaging anti-capitalist struggles in the broadest sense.” The US embargo is ‘in violation of international law’. This is a useless statement repeated a million times, and it has come back again during the ongoing Israel’s genocidal war. “[A]fter the failure of the current, self-defined “socialist” governments, Venezuelan society tends to associate any reference to socialism or the left with the corruption and authoritarianism of the Maduro governme...

Vulnerable to implosion

Note the distortion by the BBC: “Admirers see her as a leading voice for liberal values and a champion of the marginalised.” Roy is liberal? Celebrated writer faces prosecution

En Français , Arabe and English Good news for many: ‘there is no hope for Arab countries; it is in their culture.’ Full Speed Ahead … to Nowhere

Amit Dave/Reuters via merip.org “ Karim’s experience is the product of an evolving strategic partnership between India and Israel , where an increasingly overt convergence of interests and ideology has led to both states tangibly supporting one another in working towards their respective political and economic ambitions. Through this partnership, state repression in Indian-occupied territories is not an exclusively Indian project. It has become part of a broader network, linking India to the Israeli state and its own colonial project.”

  “…the numbers typically attributed to the Tiananmen massacre or the Andijan massacre in Uzbekistan were, say, 400 to 800. Here, Human Rights Watch has the names of 817 victims in Rabaa Square, and we say that the likely total count number is above a thousand.” — Kenneth Roth ,  executive director of Human Rights Watch. Documentary on Egypt’s Ra’baa crackdown premiers at Bafta