Reflections on a Crisis: My Recent Writing and Commentary on the Israel–Iran Conflict
A collected portfolio of my recent essays, interviews, and commentary on Iran’s crisis—spanning geopolitics, regime fragility, and democratic possibility.
In the weeks since the June 2025 war between Israel and Iran, I’ve published a series of commissioned essays, media appearances, and reflections across multiple platforms. This post gathers them in one place—for journalists, colleagues, and readers seeking both rapid analysis and deeper context.
A central thread across all this work is the recognition that: Iran is not a normal country.
Its system of rule is not just authoritarian—it is theocratic, millenarian, and structurally incapable of peaceful coexistence with pluralistic societies. Its political logic is built on exclusion, repression, and the weaponization of divine mandate. That insight underpins all of the writing below.
🔹 1. The Atlantic — “Iran Is Not a ‘Normal’ Country”
Commissioned by The Atlantic and published in February 2024, this piece warned—months before the June war—that the Islamic Republic’s alignment with Hamas, Hezbollah, and other proxies was neither accidental nor pragmatic. It argued that the Iranian regime’s break with the West was not tactical but theological—and that U.S. policy had consistently misread its intentions.
📖 Read the essay
🔹 2. The Atlantic — “Tehran, the Palimpsest City”
Commissioned by The Atlantic in the wake of the June war, this longform essay traces the hidden geography of Tehran: a visible city of ordinary life and an invisible one of surveillance, control, and fear. The Israeli airstrikes briefly revealed that subterranean layer—flashing into view and then vanishing again.
📖 Read the essay (gift link – no paywall)
🔹 3. The New Republic — “If the Islamic Republic Falls, Who Would Compete for Power in Iran?”
Commissioned by The New Republic, this piece maps the political landscape that would emerge if the regime fell. I assess the balance of power between IRGC factions, technocrats, and local institutions—shifting the frame from speculation to structural analysis.
📖 Read the essay
🔹 4. Project Syndicate — “Iran Has the Infrastructure for Democratic Government”
This essay explores Iran’s long-overlooked network of elected local councils—functioning quietly across the country despite decades of central repression. These grassroots institutions, I argue, offer a genuine and indigenous foundation for democratic reconstruction.
📖 Read the essay
🔹 5. Sapir Journal — “Reading Isaiah in Tehran: Chosenness and Its Shadows”
Commissioned by Sapir, this personal and philosophical piece reflects on exile, identity, and moral burden through the lens of Jewish and Iranian history. It also honors the Persian–Jewish encounter—intimate, estranged, and still unfolding.
“Reading Isaiah in Tehran”
https://sapirjournal.org/chosenness/2025/reading-isaiah-in-tehran/
Written for Sapir’s issue on Chosenness, this personal essay explores what it means to be singled out—sometimes as a bearer of moral responsibility, and sometimes as a threat to be erased. Drawing from my time as a political prisoner in Iran and my subsequent life in exile, I reflect on the doubleness of being “chosen”:
“Being singled out can mark the beginning of responsibility or the end of personhood. It can be a summons or a sentence.”
I hope it contributes to conversations about moral seriousness, exile, belonging, and political theology.
🔹 6. TV Globo (Brazil) — Interview on Regime Change and Regional Fallout
In an interview for Jornal Nacional, Brazil’s most-watched newscast, I discussed Trump and Netanyahu’s calls for regime change—and why these ideas often worsen, rather than resolve, the underlying crisis.
🎥 Watch the segment (starts at 2:20)
🔹 7. NY1 — TV Interview on the Nature of the Regime
In a conversation with NY1's Inside City Hall, I discussed why Iran’s regime is not just another autocracy—but a system whose foundational logic makes peaceful coexistence nearly impossible.
📺 Watch the segment
🔹 8. Wyoming Star News — Quoted on the Regime’s Fragility
I’m quoted extensively in this in-depth report on Iran’s strategic calculus, elite fractures, and the shockwaves from the Israeli strikes.
📖 Read the article
🧵 Read the Twitter thread with quotes and context
🧭 Background: My Commentary on the Mahsa Amini Protests
Many themes developed here—especially resistance, repression, and institutional resilience—grew out of my work covering the Mahsa Amini movement. That archive remains vital context for the current crisis.
📚 Mahsa Amini commentary archive (Substack index)
If you’re looking to understand Iran’s moment of rupture—beyond the headlines—I hope these pieces help frame what’s at stake: not just regime change, but a long-overdue reckoning with the spiritual, political, and structural logics that have shaped Iran’s war with its own people, and with the world.
—Kian