Rethinking Iran in the Shadow of the Israel-U.S. War

Mojtaba Mahdavi Informed Comment

Why have some Iranians responded positively to the war waged by Israel and the United States against Iran, or at least refrained from opposing it? Three main factors have played a central role in this regard.

1. Exhaustion (estisāl) refers to a pervasive sense of helplessness, deprivation, abandonment, humiliation of human dignity, and deep disillusionment with the possibility of meaningful domestic change. This condition is itself the product of two interrelated dynamics.

First, it reflects the ruling oligarchy’s persistent resistance, over nearly half a century, to democratic and justice-oriented movements led by students, women, youth, workers, the middle class, “the middle-class poor”, and other subalterns such as women and the youth. The repression of the Reform Movement of 1997, the student movement of 1999, the Green Movement of 2009, the bread-and-butter protests of 2017 and 2019, the progressive Woman, Life, Freedom movement of 2022, and ultimately the violent response to the protests of January 2025 all contributed to a growing sense of exhaustion among segments of Iran’s social and political forces.

The failure of the reform movement, the escalating crisis of political legitimacy, and multiple overlapping environmental emergencies – water scarcity, air pollution, energy crises, and soil degradation (echoing the four classical elements of life in pre-modern thought: water, air, fire, and earth!) – alongside livelihood insecurity, deepening class inequalities, rent-seeking, and structural corruption, have all played a decisive role in producing exhaustion as a lived experience.

To these material crises must be added a profound crisis of meaning and of both sacred and secular ideals. The ruling oligarchy’s instrumentalization of ethical, spiritual, and revolutionary values – such as resistance to oppression, demands for justice, faith and freedom, spirituality and morality, solidarity with the oppressed globally, and opposition to colonialism, racism, and neo-fascism – has drawn these ideals into the sphere of factional and low politics. In doing so, it has alienated, and in some cases even turned segments of Iranian society against, these very ideals in both their religious and worldly dimensions.

A second dynamic contributing to the intensification of estisāl is the crisis of efficacy and the absence of an organic relationship between democratic and progressive political forces and the broader public. As a consequence of political repression and their own internal shortcomings, these forces have suffered from a triple crisis of leadership, organization, and the articulation of an effective and inclusive discourse.

Moreover, the emancipatory ideas advanced by some progressive intellectuals in the public sphere – whether for real or perceived reasons – have often come to be viewed by ordinary citizens as inaccessible, excessively abstract, and confined to an “ivory tower” intellectualism. The result has been the deepening of a sense of abandonment among segments of the population.

Yet such exhaustion – however legitimate – does not necessarily lead to the adoption of a responsible or ethical political strategy. A morally grounded approach reminds us that social and political actors cannot ethically construct their political projects on the basis of personal trauma. Even if domestic authoritarianism and repression are rightly understood as forms of collective trauma, the attempt to remedy one collective trauma through the production of another – such as war of aggression – is not only ethically indefensible but politically counterproductive. Domestic authoritarianism and foreign military aggression are both evils; the latter, however, represents an absolute evil.

2. Psychological Warfare and Media Discursive Construction: The war think-tanks and architects of psychological warfare associated with Netanyahu and other right-wing extremists in Israel, alongside Trumpism and American neoconservatism, as well as segments of the Iranian right-wing opposition within both monarchist and certain non-monarchist circles – capitalized on waves of domestic discontent. Free riding the currents of popular dissatisfaction, they presented themselves as the sole viable alternative to the existing order and as the saviours of an exhausted and disillusioned society.

This “campaign of disinformation,” which had previously defended economic sanctions against the Iranian people, increasingly moved toward open support for military intervention by Israel and the United States. In doing so, it has contributed to the normalization and even moralization of war, an absolute evil recast through the neutral language of “humanitarian intervention”!

The discursive project of this segment of the diaspora opposition, cultivated over many years, has relied upon a selective, fabricated and a-historicized reconstruction of pre-revolutionary Iran under the Pahlavi monarchy. In the process, it has produced an inverted utopia, or “retrotopia” – in contrast to the future-oriented aspirations of utopia. As shown by Zygmunt Bauman, under conditions of insecurity and social anxiety generated by rapid transformation, individuals and societies may seek refuge in an idealized vision of the past. Such a past is not a faithful historical account but rather a selective reconstruction shaped by present fears, uncertainties, and unmet needs. “Retrotopia”, therefore, is less an authentic narrative of history than a political reconstruction of collective memory designed to provide psychological reassurance in moments of crisis and instability.

Following the failure of the reform movement in the mid-2000s, a discourse of “retrotopia” emerged and was systematically cultivated by segments of Iran’s neoliberal and neoconservative elites. This discourse was subsequently amplified through parts of the Persian-language diaspora media. Publications associated with this current – across both religious and secular orientations – advanced revisionist right-wing interpretations of Iran’s modern history, seeking to delegitimize opponents of the Pahlavi monarchy, including leftists, nationalist democrats, and progressive Muslim intellectuals such as Ali Shariati. Within this framework, the founders of both the Fedayeen and the Mojahedin movements in pre-Revolutionary Iran were reduced to little more than “terrorists”; prominent left-wing intellectuals such as Gholam-Hossein Saedi, Ahmad Shamloo, and Samad Behrangi were subjected to sustained attacks; and Ali Shariati was ridiculed and accused of collaboration with SAVAK, the Shah’s security apparatus. The same revisionist narrative portrayed Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh as a populist demagogue and rejected the widely documented characterization of 19 August 1953 (28 Mordad 1332) as a CIA–MI6-backed coup against his government. Instead, it argued that the Shah had merely exercised his constitutional authority to dismiss Mosaddegh from office! In some instances, proponents of these narratives selectively appropriated and decontextualized elements of the late Seyyed Javad Tabatabai’s “Iranshahri” thesis to lend intellectual legitimacy to their historical reinterpretations. The cumulative effect was the construction of a nostalgic and idealized image of the Pahlavi era, accompanied by a systematic demonization of the diverse political and intellectual currents that had challenged monarchical authoritarianism in modern Iran.

In certain manifestations, the Iranian retrotopia established political, discursive, and strategic alignments with some of the most reactionary currents in the contemporary United States – Trumpism – and with racist and reactionary tendencies in Israel associated with Netanyahu and the far-right religious parties. In doing so, it has opportunistically reframed Iran’s emancipatory aspirations of freedom, social justice, and democracy in ways compatible with the geopolitical objectives of global neo-fascist forces. At other times, it has advanced the more naïve proposition that the strategic objectives of Trump and Netanyahu may temporarily converge with the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, thereby legitimizing tactical or instrumental engagement with such forces!

This retrotopia discourse, coupled with wishful thinking and the fantasy of an “easy and swift  overthrow” of the regime – captured in the refrain that “whoever comes next will be better” –ridden the wave of public exhaustion and despair. Through the language of “humanitarian intervention,” it contributed to the normalization and moral legitimation of war and military aggression as forms of public good.

Yet this was not the whole story. Alongside estisāl as a structurally rooted condition of socio-psychological exhaustion, and the fantasy of salvation through “humanitarian war,” a third factor has also played a decisive role in the normalization of war of aggression: the discourse of Iranian exceptionalism.

3.The Discourse of “Iranian exceptionalism” appears in both negative and positive forms. The negative version must be examined within the broader framework of “Middle Eastern exceptionalism” and its various manifestations. In this view – whether in Orientalist discourses, Orientalism in reverse found in autocratic Islamism or authoritarian secular nationalism, or even in certain strands of cultural relativism – Iran, as part of the Global South, the Muslim world, and the Middle East, is deemed unfit for democracy. Democratic values and institutions are portrayed as alien to Iranian culture and mentality, while Iranian political culture is presumed to be more compatible with authoritarian forms of governance. This line of reasoning finds supporters among some proponents of Iran’s monarchists and pro-Pahlavi regime, insofar as it defends the necessity of an “enlightened authoritarianism” during a transitional historical phase or possibly beyond.

The present analysis, however, is more concerned with a positive version of a particular articulation of Iranian exceptionalism that has been mobilized in support of war and sanctions, and in the normalization of the moral justification of military aggression, including alignment – whether strategic or discursive – with Trumpism and Netanyahu’s far-right, war-criminal regime. In this perspective, Iran is represented as fundamentally distinct – essentially and ontologically – from its Arab, Afghan, Turkish, and other regional neighbors, on the basis of its ancient history, civilizational legacy, consolidated national identity, relative ethnic cohesion, and even its alleged “Aryan race.” This alleged historical-cultural-racial superiority is then invoked to argue that Iran, unlike other Middle Eastern countries, would not descend into chaos and destruction if subjected to war or external military intervention, as has happened in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, or Syria. In other words, Iranian exceptionalism is constructed as a supremacist, essentialist narrative that positions Iran as an exception to the rule of Middle Eastern disorder and collapse. This version of Iranian exceptionalism can be critically examined from at least two perspectives:

First, it represents a strikingly contradictory fusion of self-exceptionalism and self-whitening! It constructs an imagined proximity and ontological affinity with White, Western European civilization – and, in some formulations, with Israel as its supposed civilizational extension in the Middle East – while simultaneously expressing a form of self-devaluation, inferiority, and alienation. It reflects a loss of agency and subjectivity, and a belief that meaningful political transformation can only be delivered externally rather than produced internally through collective homegrown socio-political actions.

The appeal for salvation from some of the most reactionary and discredited forces in the United States and Israel, and the celebration of the bombing of one’s own country, reveal the deeply ambivalent and internally contradictory structure of this discourse. On the one hand, it expresses loyalty to Trump and Netanyahu on the assumption that “humanitarian intervention” will liberate Iran without harming it, because “we are somehow like them!” The empirical reality is that neither the United States nor Israel subscribes to any notion of Iranian exceptionalism; rather, Iran is treated, like other Middle Eastern states, as a field of geopolitical opportunity. What exists in practice is American-Israeli exceptionalism in which they are exempted from international law and the laws of war, repeatedly manifested in documented violations and war crimes.

On the other hand, Iranian exceptionalism, often becomes a discourse of self-orientalization and self-abdication – a denial of collective agency and political self-determination, coupled with an illusion of acceptance into the “club of the West!” As Frantz Fanon, the prominent postcolonial thinker, argued, this is akin to colonized subjects wearing a “white mask” in the hope of being recognized as white! The harsh reality, however, is that the cold logic of international politics remains governed by power relations and geopolitical calculation. In conditions where the Iranian opposition and diaspora do not operate on an equal footing with global and regional powers, those very powers inevitably instrumentalize segments of the opposition to advance their own strategic objectives, as was evident in the 12-day and 40-day wars. The self-exceptionalist tendency within parts of this opposition obscures a sober understanding of the ruthless realities of international politics.

The second critique of this feature of Iranian exceptionalist discourse concerns its naïve and illusory belief in the myth of the doctrine of “humanitarian intervention,” and its most recent iteration, the doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). A lack of awareness of the tragic empirical record of this abstract liberal-ethical theory in practice across the Middle East and North Africa has led even some sincere and credible Iranian actors and intellectuals to fall into the trap of global hegemonic propaganda and to call for “humanitarian interventions.”

As I have argued in a separate article, the moral principle of humanitarian intervention – drawing in part on Immanuel Kant’s idea of “perpetual peace” – informed the development of certain strands of international law aimed at preventing genocide and responding to mass atrocities, war crimes, and similar violations. In the first phase, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In the second phase, at the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the idea of humanitarian intervention gained traction through reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter. In the third phase, the doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect” was adopted by the United Nations in 2005, seeking to reframe sovereignty not merely as a “right” of states, but as a “responsibility” toward citizens and the international community.

Accordingly, if state authorities commit gross violations of human rights, the international community is understood to have both the right and the responsibility to intervene in order to protect affected populations. Moreover, R2P was designed around three interdependent pillars in order to provide a comprehensive (and not merely military) framework: first, the responsibility to prevent, through addressing structural causes of violence and providing effective economic, social, and political assistance to eliminate the root causes of conflict; second, the responsibility to react, through appropriate measures when mass atrocities occur; and third, the responsibility to rebuild, through post-intervention reconstruction and stabilization in societies where intervention has taken place.

The empirical reality, however, stands in stark contradiction to these legal and ethical aspirations. In practice, none of these principles have been consistently realized in the Middle East and North Africa. Geopolitical interests and the logic of great-power politics have repeatedly overshadowed international law and moral considerations. In cases where a “responsibility to react” was urgently required, no meaningful action was taken; and in cases where military intervention was neither necessary nor justified – and often exacerbated violence – the doctrine of humanitarian intervention/R2P was reduced to a narrowly militarized framework.

At the same time, the first and third pillars (prevention and reconstruction) were largely neglected, while the second pillar (reaction) became the dominant operative logic, particularly under the leadership of the United States and NATO. As a result, the doctrine of humanitarian intervention/R2P was effectively transformed into a discursive and legal cover for war and military intervention in pursuit of Western geopolitical interests.

This militarized practice, consistently accompanied by grave violations of human rights, has been justified in the language of human rights, women’s liberation, democracy promotion, counterterrorism, and humanitarian protection, while serving the interests of geopolitical strategy, the global arms industry, the oil sector, construction conglomerates, and the financial architecture of Western capitalism. A political economy and postcolonial account of wars and humanitarian interventions/R2P in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and similar cases reveals the scale of financial flows involved, including tens of billions of dollars in frozen national assets redirected into Western banking systems, alongside massive profits for reconstruction, oil, and defense corporations.

Meanwhile, well-documented war crimes committed during these interventions – including the illegal invasion of Iraq based on false claims regarding weapons of mass destruction, the torture in Abu Ghraib prison, and the use of phosphorus bombs against civilians in Iraq – have largely been met with impunity. The decade-long sanctions regime against Iraq in the 1990s, which contributed to the death of at least half a million Iraqi children, the systematic weakening of middle and lower classes, and the erosion of civil society, itself constitutes a form of crime against humanity that has never been properly adjudicated.

These sanctions also undermined the possibility of homegrown civil resistance against Saddam Hussein’s regime and, paradoxically, helped pave the way for the illegal NATO-led invasion of 2003. Numerous examples of double standards and selective enforcement of humanitarian principles are evident: from the relative indifference to the 1988 Halabja massacre, in which more than 5,000 Kurdish civilians were killed by chemical weapons, to the repeated and ongoing silence in the face of systematic violence and genocide against Palestinians.

Photo by mohammad hassan taheri. The historical residence of Mahinistan Raheb, among the old houses of Kashan, in the center of Darb Bagh neighborhood, was registered as one of the national monuments of Iran on August 19, 2004. This house dates back to the middle of the Qajar era, which has three separate courtyards: the inner courtyard, the outer courtyard and the crew’s courtyard. Mohinestan Rabh was restored in 2009 under the supervision of the master of Iranian architecture Mr. Seyed Akbar Hali and in 2012 the restoration of this building was completed. On Unsplash

The purpose of recalling these cases is to underscore a basic but often obscured point: a comparative reading of the implementation – and non-implementation – of humanitarian intervention/R2P reveals that geopolitics and the logic of power often prevail over international law. Ethical principles are thus rendered selective and instrumental, deployed in service of power rather than justice. From this perspective, appeals to dominant global powers to “rescue” peoples from authoritarianism do not lead to democracy or freedom. Iran is not an exception to this rule, as clearly demonstrated by the experiences of the 12-day and 40-day wars.

Iran Is Not An Exception: Four Reflections On The 40-Day War

1. The Israeli-American aggression against Iran began with what amounts to a war crime: the killing of 168 elementary-school girls in Minab. It subsequently continued through killing of thousands of civilians, the systematic destruction of extensive cultural and historical heritage sites, scientific and research centers, hundreds of schools and universities, and critical infrastructure in the oil, petrochemical, steel, pharmaceutical, urban, and defence sectors, as well as residential areas. All of these constitute clear instances of war crimes under international law. To this must be added the catastrophic environmental consequences and the profound psychological traumas generated by the war. Yet there exists no credible authority willing or able to adjudicate these blatant crimes implemented in the name of humanitarian intervention and saving the people!

1. Israel’s objective is the consolidation of its regional hegemonic dominance in the Middle East and North Africa. For this reason, it cannot tolerate any regional power that is its equal or superior. To secure this dominance, it does not hesitate – when capable – to pursue strategies aimed at Gazafication of Iran or the replication of the “Dahiya doctrine,” previously applied in southern Lebanon. The Israeli regime under Netanyahu and his allies has pursued policies aimed at generating chaos and civil wars, and at undermining the foundations of Iran’s industrial and developmental capacity – in effect, waging war against “Iranian modernity.” Under such conditions, any illusion of alliance with Israel in pursuit of a stronger and more developed Iran is not only politically naïve but also deeply unethical, particularly given that this regime has been accused by the International Criminal Court of genocide and war crimes.  A critique of domestic and foreign policy of the ruling Iranian authorities is both necessary and legitimate; however, it does not in any way weaken the analytical and ethical assessment of Israel’s regional strategy or the principled stance toward it.
2. Iran’s rich civilization, its deep cultural heritage, and its multilayered millennia-old identity do not immunize it against the catastrophic consequences of war and post-war crises. These consequences are not the result of cultural deficiency but rather the cumulative outcome of war’s political, economic, and social repercussions. Like all wars, this war risks further securitizing the public sphere, replacing existing forms of governance with new forms of domination, and weakening civil society, democratic movements, the middle class, the working class, and other subaltern and marginalized groups, including women and youth.

The post-war economic crisis may further consolidate oligarchic rule, intensify rent-seeking, deepen class inequalities, and shift the priorities of civil society from democratization to mere survival and livelihood. War may also give rise to a form of Iranian Bonapartism – military-authoritarian rule justified in the name of efficiency, nationalism, national security, or economic stabilization – which may lead to political closure.

History demonstrates that war does not bring democracy or freedom. Democratic transition is not a sprint but a marathon of endurance. It requires independence, security, and sustainable peace, within which autonomous civil society forces – organized democratic movements, capable national leadership emerging from a pluralistic society, and an inclusive democratic discourse – can pursue the realization of Iran’s over a century-long aspirations. These aspirations include social justice, freedom, democracy, a secular state, citizenship rights, and the guarantee of equal moral and legal status for all Iranians, regardless of gender, sexuality, religion, class, ideology, ethnicity, or race.

What Is To Be Done? Four Humble Observations!

1. Iranian exceptionalism – in both negative and positive forms – is a dangerous and misleading discourse. Iran is neither uniquely destined to endure religious authoritarianism, secular “enlightened” dictatorship, or various forms of military oligarchy and Iranian Bonapartism, nor is it immune from the devastating consequences of war – even when such war is framed as “humanitarian intervention.” Iran is neither condemned to fail in its democratic struggle nor protected from collapse and devastation. The task is not to construct myths of exception, but to develop a historically grounded and realistic understanding of the possibilities of emancipatory struggle, so that through organization, leadership, and a democratic discourse, the long-standing aspirations of Iranian movements over the past century may be realized. The condition for achieving freedom and democracy, however, is the guarantee of Iran’s independence, sovereignty, and security.
2. To realize the ideal of Iran for all Iranians, one must simultaneously reject two tendencies. On the one hand, authoritarian approaches that, in the name of defending Iran, deny or erase Iranians themselves – or, in the name of defending Islam, exclude Muslims – produce the logic of Iran without Iranians or Islam without Muslims, both of which serve as ideological covers for authoritarianism and exclusivism. On the other hand, approaches that, in the name of liberating Iranians, justify the destruction of Iran through foreign intervention represent an equally unethical and hypocritical position: Iranians without Iran becomes a cover for invasion, plunder, and national devastation. An ethical and politically responsible approach must simultaneously oppose domestic despotism and foreign aggression in order to preserve Iran for all Iranians.
3. Iranian identity – and the very idea of Iran as a political and cultural community – is inherently plural. Recognizing this plurality is a necessary precondition for any democratic future. Iran’s diversity encompasses religious and non-religious worldviews, gender identities and sexual orientations, ethnic and racial communities, linguistic and cultural traditions, and a wide range of political and economic perspectives. A democratic Iran therefore requires the rejection of all myths of purity – cultural, religious, racial and beyond. Whether expressed through Islamist exclusivism, Westernizing universalism, Persian/Aryan ethnonationalism, or other forms of ethnic chauvinism, such claims to purity are ideological fictions. Iranian society, like every society, has been shaped by centuries of cultural exchange and historical interaction; its people embody multiple and overlapping historical, social, and cultural trajectories. Projects of radical purity are therefore not only historically false but also politically dangerous, as they share an exclusionary logic characteristic of fascistic ideologies. As the great fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafez reminds us, living together in a diverse society requires modārā (forbearance and tolerance) and morovvat (civility, generosity, and magnanimity). These virtues cultivate compassion, solidarity, and mutual recognition, enabling citizens to disagree profoundly while remaining committed to a shared democratic community.
4. Friedrich Nietzsche, in Beyond Good and Evil, offers a profound warning: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes have the capacity to transform their opponents in their own image. A democratic and ethical opposition must therefore resist the temptation of becoming what it opposes, and preserve its moral agency against the seduction of violence and absolutism.

The reflections of Syrian activist Ibrahim Al-Assil, a participant in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian regime, provide a sobering critique of exceptionalist thinking and underscore the dangers of assuming that Iran is immune to trajectories experienced elsewhere in the region. As he cautions:

One of the earliest and most consequential mistakes in Syria was the belief among protesters that their situation was fundamentally different from that of other countries. Syrians, too, believed that their country was not like Libya or Sudan, where the state could completely collapse; not like Iraq or Lebanon, where sectarian divisions could fragment society; and not like Yemen, where unrest could create opportunities for the rise of religious radicalism. Many even thought it inconceivable that the experience of Iran’s 1979 Revolution could be repeated – that an extremist religious faction might come to power and subsequently marginalize other revolutionary forces. I feel compelled to remind Iranians of something they may not wish to hear: caught up in the excitement of the moment, many Syrian protesters lost the ability to recognize these dangers and turned a blind eye to looming mistakes. I would strongly emphasize to Iranians that events can unfold in unexpectedly different ways. From the very beginning, … one must keep a vigilant watch over a movement; A movement itself can become a monster!

Moreover, I wish to invoke a foundational ethical reminder of democratic struggle and solidarity – one that resists the temptations of self-centeredness and indifference to the suffering of others: Martin Niemöller’s renowned reflection, “First they came…,” written in the shadow of the Nazi era:

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me!

We must not remain silent in the face of global forces of neofascism, including genocide and war crimes committed in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and elsewhere. Nor can we remain silent in the face of domestic authoritarianism and the repression of those who think, speak, or live differently. Silence today is complicity – and it risks a future in which no one remains to speak for us tomorrow!

As Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

And as Iran’s Saadi Shirazi teaches:

Human beings are members of one whole,
in creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
other members uneasy will remain.

Let us connect Saadi’s ontological vision of cosmopolitan existence with Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for cosmopolitan justice, dismantle the discourse of Iranian exceptionalism, and commit to a struggle for justice and freedom without exception.

References

Bauman,  Zygmunt. Retrotopia. London: Polity Press, 2017.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks, R. Philcox, Trans. Grove Press, 1952.

International Court of Justice (ICJ). “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) – Provisional measures.” ICJ, January 26, 2024. 

Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU). “Explainer: Th E Dahiya Doctrine & Israel’s use of Disproportionate Force.” IMEU, July 31, 2024.

Mahdavi, Mojtaba. “A Postcolonial Critique of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the Middle East.” Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs – Centre for Strategic Research, Vol. XX, No. 1, Spring 2015, pp. 7-36.

Mahdavi, Mojtaba. “Woman, Life, Freedom Movement and a Pathology of the Diaspora Opposition: Retrotopia, Co-optation and Misrepresentation.” Iranian Studies Journal, Winter 2025, pp. 1-9.

Mahdavi, Mojtaba. Ed. The Myth of Middle East Exceptionalism: Unfinished Social Movements. Syracuse University Press, 2023.

Mahdavi, Mojtaba. “Yes to the People, No to Neofascism: How Should Iran Respond to the Israeli-U.S. Invasion?” Jadaliyya. July 2, 2025.

Niemöller, Martin. “First They Came for the Communists.” Postwar Sermons and Statements, c. 1946.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. Vintage Books, 1998.

Sadeghi-Boroujedi, Eskandar. “Israel and the US Have Been Waging War on Iran’s Development.” Jacobin, April 12, 2026.

الاصیل ، ابراهیم. درسهایی از خیزش مردم سوریه. چهارچشمی باید مراقب جنبش بود، مبادا خودش هیولا شود! گفتگو با فرناز سیفی. اسو. ۵ فوریه ۲۰۲۳.  

مهدوی، مجتبی. واکاوی انتقادی دکترین «مسئولیت حمایت. نقد اقتصاد سیاسی. ۶ اسفند ۱۴۰۴.

Mojtaba Mahdavi is Professor of Political Science and the ECMC Chair in Islamic Studies at the University of Alberta. His website is here. He is the author and editor of numerous works on post-Islamism, contemporary social movements and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), postrevolutionary Iran, and modern Islamic political thought. He is the editor of The Myth of Middle East Exceptionalism: Unfinished Social Movements (Syracuse University Press, 2023); co-editor of Rethinking China, the Middle East and Asia in a “Multiplex World” (Brill 2022); and co-editor of Towards the Dignity of Difference: Neither ‘End of History’ nor ‘Clash of Civilizations’ (Routledge 2012). He has also served as guest editor of The Many Faces of Contemporary Post-Islamism (special issue of Religions, 2021) and Contemporary Social Movements in the Middle East and Beyond (special issue of Sociology of Islam, 2014). Dr. Mahdavi is currently working on the following book projects: Ali Shariati and Beyond: Imagining Ethical Democratic Socialism in Muslim Contexts; Towards a Progressive Post-Islamism: Neo-Shariati Discourse in Postrevolutionary Iran; and Iran: Is a post-Islamist Democracy Possible? He has received numerous awards and grants, including the Fulbright Canada Visiting Scholar Award at Princeton University, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connection Grant, the SSHRC Conference Fund, the IDRC Canada Partnership Grant, the Killam Research Operating Grant, and the Visiting Fellowship at the Liu Institute and Green College at the University of British Columbia, among others.

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