“Time is slipping underneath our Feet:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:37

February 14, 2026
Juan Cole
No 37 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám recognizes that life is fleeting, but urges that we concentrate on the sweetness of the present moment.

A Bloodstained Anniversary of the Revolution in Iran

February 13, 2026
Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi
The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, left the country on a journey to exile on January 16, 1979. Less than a month later, on February 11, the popular revolution triumphed and closed the book of monarchy. The day the Shah left was perhaps the happiest day in my life up to that point. I was at my university campus, Tehran Polytechnic, when the news arrived. I lit a cigarette, another bad habit of teenage years, and left the campus aimlessly just to join the joyous crowds. I had never seen an entire nation so exceptionally jubilant, deeply ecstatic, profoundly euphoric. People were holding up the front page of various newspapers, all of which read, in the largest font that could fit the page, the words “Shah Raft” (The Shah is Gone!).

US smuggled thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran to fuel riots: Report

February 13, 2026

Preparations to sneak in the satellite internet devices into the country began months before the Mossad-backed riots began in January

The Palestinian Question as a Framework for a Century of Tunisian Mobilization

     February 14, 2026
Hèla Yousfi
In September 2025, Tunisia was the scene of an event of considerable symbolic and political significance: the departure of the Global Sumud flotilla for Gaza from the ports of Sidi Bou Said and Bizerte. Supported by a broad coalition of activists, trade unions, associations, and Tunisian citizens, this international initiative was aimed at breaking the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip since 2007, drawing the international community’s attention to the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Palestine, and demanding the opening of a maritime corridor for the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.1 The popular mobilization it has sparked in Tunisia is expressed in the Arabic slogan “Resistance, Resistance, no peace, no compromise,” which is combined with the internationalist slogan “Free Palestine,” reflecting the intertwining of Tunisian mobilizations and transnational solidarity.