iPouya

My quotes in Newsweek: “Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Pouya Alimagham, an author and Middle East historian, joined the global calls for action on Yemen. He argued that Washington should press Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to halt the conflict, regardless of the pace of JCPOA dealings.

‘The Saudi-Emirate war has not yielded any political results, and has instead only fostered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in the region’s poorest nation,’ Alimagham told Newsweek. ‘In that vein, there is simply no reason as to why the war should continue. Every indicator suggests that it should not have commenced in the first place, and should have ended long ago at the least.’

When it comes to the nuclear deal, he feels it is the U.S. side that needs to soften its ‘hardline’ stance, as it would enable a return by both parties.

‘I think a phased return in which the U.S. initiates a nominal step, such as removing some sanctions, could very well set in motion a series of events that leads to both returning to full compliance,’ Alimagham said.

‘To save face, the Biden administration can lift some sanctions in the name of humanitarian aid; the Trump administration had tightened sanctions on #Iran at the height of the pandemic, for which Iran was the region’s epicenter,” he said. “Should that happen, Iran would likely respond by taking nominal steps in the direction of returning to compliance.'”

My interview with Jadaliyya on my book–Excerpt: “While the book is based on my PhD dissertation, it is very much autobiographical—even though I am not directly present in the book. There are a few footnotes that include some relevant family history, but I do not speak in the first person beyond a disclaimer in the introduction. This is probably true of many Iranians who grew up in the United States and write about Iran; it is a history that not only shapes us but has followed us here. As such, much of what I have written and taught, even as an undergraduate when I student-ran a course on modern Iran at UC Berkeley, is rooted in the Iranian Revolution. That is precisely why this history is fascinating; these roots not only ground us but they have shaped our past, present, and future—and that is how the Green Uprising came to my attention. It harnessed the history, symbols, and dominant ideology of the Iranian Revolution to contest the outcome of that very revolution, the Islamic Republic.”

My quote in The Independent: “Bolton is gone now. But Pompeo is still Secretary of State and he still wants war and regime change, not diplomacy and negotiation. Pompeo pushed Trump to approve the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, which brought the two countries to the brink of war. And if Trump wants to negotiate with Iran, he needs a top diplomat who is onboard.

‘Pompeo is a major obstacle. He doesn’t want talks, doesn’t want a new agreement, and was a main force behind the assassination of Soleimani, but he’s not the only obstacle to talks — just a big one,’ said Pouya Alimagham, a historian of the modern Middle East at MIT.”