The New York Observer » Iran http://www.observer.com Just another WordPress site Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:52:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Friends and Allies: The Worm Turns for the U.S. and Israel It's hardly a secret that the Obama White House and the Netanyahu government don't always see eye to eye. Nor is it a news break to note that some, perhaps even many, Americans disagree with Israeli policy on a range of issues, many of them, of course, related to ongoing tensions with the Palestinians. There Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/opinion/friends-and-allies-worm-turns-us-and-israel Malcolm Gladwell Compares Twitter Activism To Civil Rights Malcolm Gladwell is sick and tired of hearing about the way social media will change the world for the better. In a lengthy article this week comparing online activism to the Civil Rights movement, The New Yorker scribe belittles Web 2.0's importance as a tool for social change. "A networked, weak-tie world is good Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2010/media/malcolm-gladwell-compares-twitter-civil-rights Persian Tug Not deviating from Swiss stereotypes regarding any matter politically charged, Piaget SA, the maker of gold and diamond-encrusted watches, has disavowed any connection to the 36-story office tower that bears its name. “Piaget the brand is not affiliated with this,” said spokeswoman Karen Blum in an email—“this” referring to the address 650 Fifth Avenue.

The tower Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/commercial-observer/persian-tug-0 Outside Iran-Linked 650 Fifth, Just Another Rainy Day at the Office On a dreary Friday morning at 650 Fifth Avenue, a day after the U.S. government announced it would seize the building because of ownership links to Iran, it was just another day at the office. Most employees who worked there had little reaction to the seizure, and no one reported anything unusual about the building. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/outside-iran-linked-650-fifth-just-another-rainy-day-office Inside Iran’s Fifth Avenue Skyscraper Citigroup, Joseph Abboud, Kurt Salmon Associates, Pali Capital, and the Liz Claiborne Art Ortenberg Foundation are just a few of the bold-faced names who may have been paying rent to the Iranian government for their offices in a Fifth Avenue skyscraper, according to real estate sources, the tenants' own Web sites, and a complaint filed Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/real-estate/inside-piaget-building Obama Stays With Engagement, at a Cost To Be Determined The White House made clear on Sunday that Barack Obama will proceed with his push for diplomatic engagement with Iran, no matter the outcome of the current upheaval in the Islamic Republic.

Appearing on several Sunday morning talk shows, Susan Rice, Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, and David Axelrod, one of the Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/4258/obama-stays-engagement-cost-be-determined Obama Stays With Engagement, at a Cost To Be Determined Obama handed his opponents a weapon when he said he'll engage Iran in the wake of the post-election Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/politics/obama-stays-engagement-cost-be-determined With Video of Iranian Death, What’s O.K. to Air? On the morning of Monday, June 22, television producers across the city grappled with a difficult question—how much of Neda’s death do we show on TV?

Over the weekend, Neda Agha-Soltan, a 26-year-old Iranian woman, was shot and killed in the streets of Tehran, nearby clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators. Her tragic final moments Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/media/video-iranian-death-whats-ok-air We Are All Aggregators Now Among the many lessons learned from this "new media revolution" spurred by the violent protests in Iran, one is that we are all aggregators. The Huffington Post, Andrew Sullivan and Nate Silver are not the only ones. Anyone posting links to stories about Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/media/we-are-all-aggregators The Last Thing the Iranian Reformers Need It’s not a stretch for Americans to look at the scenes of mass protest in Iran and think back to 1989, when popular uprisings toppled one Soviet-backed regime after another in Eastern Europe.

That mental association is one that Barack Obama’s critics have seized upon, arguing that the same presidential bully pulpit that Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/4165/last-thing-iranian-reformers-need The Last Thing the Iranian Reformers Need It’s not a stretch for Americans to look at the scenes of mass protest in Iran and think back to 1989, when popular uprisings toppled one Soviet-backed regime after another in Eastern Europe. That mental association is one that Barack Obama’s critics have seized upon, arguing that the same presidential bully pulpit that hastened the Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/politics/last-thing-iranian-reformers-need As Tehran Roils, Obama Refuses to Pander Rudy Giuliani used to like to tell the story about how, at the height of the panic and chaos of 9/11, he supposedly turned to Bernie Kerik, then his police commissioner, and exclaimed: “Thank God George Bush is our president!”

This was back when memories of the disputed 2000 election were still Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/4146/tehran-roils-obama-refuses-pander As Tehran Roils, Obama Refuses to Pander Rudy Giuliani used to like to tell the story about how, at the height of the panic and chaos of 9/11, he supposedly turned to Bernie Kerik, his then-police commissioner, and exclaimed: “Thank God George Bush is our president!” This was back when memories of the disputed 2000 election were still fresh, so the sentiment Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/politics/tehran-roils-obama-refuses-pander How to Invent Facts About the Iranian Election Even when the evidence for something is overwhelmingly compelling, a small but noisy chunk of society will still resist it. The debate over evolution is an example of this. So is the present discussion of the Iranian election results.

The clear consensus in the West is that the fix was in—that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/4097/how-invent-facts-about-iranian-election How to Invent Facts About the Iranian Election Even when the evidence for something is overwhelmingly compelling, a small but noisy chunk of society will still resist it. The debate over evolution is an example of this. So is the present discussion of the Iranian election results. The clear consensus in the West is that the fix was in—that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supposed re-election Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2009/politics/how-invent-facts-about-iranian-election