NIACast

NIAC's new report, "Returning to and Building on the Iran Nuclear Deal: A Maximum Pressure Exit Strategy," outlines how the U.S. can get back to the JCPOA and back to the table with Iran to resolve bilateral and regional challenges -- either under a Biden Administration or a reformed Trump Administration.

This launch event features Joe Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund, Suzanne DiMaggio of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, NIAC President Jamal Abdi, and is hosted by France 24 Senior Journalist Sanam Shantyaei. 

>> Read the report

>> Watch the event on Youtube

In our final chat with authors featured in "My Shadow is My Skin: Voices from the Iranian Diaspora," Mana and Assal sit down with Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh. Her essay, "My Mom Killed Michael Jackson," explores her travels to Iran and a personal story of longing for a place that is at once familiar, yet out of reach.

Get "My Shadow is My Skin at your local bookstore or here. And check more of Shokoofeh's writing at https://medium.com/@alwaysnotquite1.

Continuing our series of conversations with authors featured in "My Shadow is My Skin: Voices from the Iranian Diaspora," Assal and Mana chat with Dr. Persis Karim, who contributed an essay and the forward for the anthology, and helped bring the entire project together with her work at San Francisco State University's Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies. Both thoughtful and witty, her essay, "In Praise of Big Noses," reflects on the influence of the western aesthetic on the Iranian body.

Get "My Shadow is My Skin at your local bookstore or here.

Jamal, Ryan and Sina discuss The New Yorker piece "Twilight of the Revolution" and a proposal from the rightwing organization JINSA urging Trump to officially pursue "regime collapse" in Iran. Then they look at Sina's recent series in Responsible Statecraft on dangerous proposals from the Democratic side for Iran and how a Biden administration actually should approach the region.

For the second part in our series of conversations with the authors featured in "My Shadow Is My Skin: Voices from the Iranian Diaspora," Assal sat down with Darius Atefar-Peckham, an up and coming poet whose contribution to the anthology, "Learning Farsi," is a reflection on his mother's passing when he was just 3 and the Iranian identity she handed down to him.

"My Shadow is My Skin" is available at your local bookstore or here: https://www.amazon.com/My-Shadow-Skin-Iranian-Diaspora-ebook/dp/B0813R56KR

On the two-year anniversary of the Trump administration's decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal in favor of "maximum pressure" sanctions -- and coinciding with the president's veto of anti-war legislation -- Mana, Ryan, Assal and Jamal reflect on how we got here and where things may be headed.

Mana, Assal and Jamal discuss the Trump administration's new campaign to kill the Iran deal at the UN by claiming the US. is still a participant in the agreement. Then they talk through a troubling update on Sirous Asgari, the Iranian scientist unjustly detained by ICE, who has now contracted coronavirus (16:40).

The U.S. government lost its case against Sirous Asgari. But just moments after a judge dismissed the charges against him, Dr. Asgari was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is being held indefinitely. Now, as he fights for his freedom, he is sounding the alarm about the dangerous conditions in ICE detention facilities that put him and his fellow detainees at risk of contracting coronavirus. This week we speak with attorney Mehrnoush Yazdanyar who is working with Dr. Asgari to help secure his freedom.

(You can sign the petition to ICE here: https://www.change.org/p/ice-field-office-director-new-orleans-save-my-dad-from-ice-s-virus-ridden-detention-centers)

Mana and Jamal discuss the campaign to suspend Iran sanctions during the corona crisis (1:50) and evaluate pro-sanctions talking points from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (5:10). Then physician Payam Parvinchiha joins Mana and Assal (15:18) for a group chat about the societal impact of coronavirus, why the U.S. was caught unprepared, and what we can do to fight the pandemic and support our health care workers.