Showing 1 - 8 of 8
What would happen if Khamenei falls?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/01/2026
» The demonstrations began again in Iran last week, only two years after the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement convulsed the country for months. However, the current protests are potentially much broader than that episode because they are driven by the collapse in Iran's currency, the rial (now 1,420,000 to the US dollar), and the explosive rise in the cost of living.
Iran: Drought, incompetence, revolution?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/11/2025
» Twenty years of strict sanctions on Iran by both the United States and the United Nations did not bring down the regime of the ayatollahs. Half a dozen major waves of non-violent protest involving several thousand deaths have not brought it down either. Even last June's massive bombing campaign by Israel and the US did not bring it to heel.
Iran's theocracy simply cannot go on forever
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/07/2024
» 'I have heard that people's zeal and interest is higher than in the first round [of Iran's presidential election]," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranian TV just before the second round of voting on Sunday. "It is wrong to assume those who abstained in the first round are opposed to Islamic rule."
In Iran, all options to curb crisis are bad
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/10/2022
» 'Death to [fill in the blank]!" has been the slogan of choice chanted by Iranian protesters since the glory days of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. ("Death to the Shah!", "Death to America!", etc) It's now forty-three years later, however, and the content has become a bit more nuanced.
Playing football won't turn boys into manly men
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/02/2021
» It seemed innocent enough at the start: just a surge in the number of boys coming to school with notes from doctors saying they were excused from playing contact sports. But pretty soon high schools all over China were having trouble finding enough willing young men to make up a football team.
Major powers' defence budgets are indefensible
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/01/2021
» The recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan made sense, in an old-fashioned way. The dispute was about territory -- borders that were drawn almost a century ago by a Russian dictator, Joseph Stalin -- and Azerbaijan had lost the last war and a lot of land.
Motive behind Russian vote is anyone's guess
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/07/2020
» 'The very existence of an opportunity for the current president (to be re-elected in 2024), given his major gravitas, would be a stabilising factor for our society," said Valentina Tereshkova, former Soviet cosmonaut, first woman in space, and now, at 83, a member of the Russian Duma (parliament).
Gay rights and trends in global culture
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/09/2018
» Is there really such a thing as a global culture? Consider gay rights.