Iran

Iran alone: Tehran’s perspective on escalating hostilities

25 May 2019 9:00 am

On 20 May, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, predicted that Donald Trump would fail to subdue Iran just as…

Trump’s Iran strategy: Keep your enemies close and your hawks closer

18 May 2019 9:00 am

 Washington, DC Donald Trump has an itchy trigger finger, and his name is John Bolton. The President’s national security adviser…

neocons donald trump iran

Donald Trump has been captured by the neocons

9 April 2019 2:27 am

Until now Donald Trump has proceeded with relative impunity in foreign affairs. But his imposition of a terrorist designation on…

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I was forced to wear a hijab. It wasn’t liberating

16 February 2019 9:00 am

It was World Hijab Day earlier this month. You probably missed it, but you can imagine the idea: ‘global citizens’…

A blast of restorative air: comedian Mark Steel. Photo: In Pictures Ltd./ Corbis/ Getty Images

The attempt to bring back topicality to Ambridge has been far too effective

2 February 2019 9:00 am

It’s becoming clear that the travails afflicting all the major players in The Archers, Radio 4’s flagship drama, are intended…

Iran’s boat people — and why they’re coming to Britain

5 January 2019 9:00 am

When the migrant crisis started, about three years ago, it was seen as a mainly Syrian affair. Caught in the…

The people have not forgotten me: the exiled Empress of Iran interviewed

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Somewhere in the bowels of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is a portrait from a lost world. Its subject…

Trump’s anti-Iran vendetta is starting to backfire

3 November 2018 9:00 am

It says something about the level of political discourse in America that Donald Trump decided to trumpet sanctions on Iran…

Why do we support the Iran regime when it is bitterly hostile to our way of life?

11 August 2018 9:00 am

President Trump has ended US participation in the Iran deal and imposed sanctions. No doubt this is annoying to the…

The internal logic of the NHS makes it ruthlessly cold-hearted

30 June 2018 9:00 am

Gordon Brown, echoing Aneurin Bevan, says that the greatest gift that the NHS brings to people is ‘serenity’. He is…

Putin says he’s making Russia great again. In reality, it’s crumbling

9 June 2018 9:00 am

This is Putin’s time. Next week, the Fifa World Cup kicks off in Moscow, and the Kremlin has spared no…

How hospices make you think differently about life

19 May 2018 9:00 am

The timing of the Today programme’s series about hospices could not have been more apt, coming as it did so…

Death in the streets as anti-government unrest sweeps Iran

6 January 2018 9:00 am

Home In a message for the New Year, as though it were an immemorial custom, Theresa May, the Prime Minister,…

The Iranian rebellion the world wants to ignore

6 January 2018 9:00 am

If there is one lesson the world should have learned from Iran’s ‘Green Revolution’ of 2009 and the so-called Arab…

Saudi Arabia has united with Israel against Iran – and a desert storm is brewing

11 November 2017 9:00 am

Until last weekend, the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh’s exclusive Diplomatic Quarter was colloquially known as the Princes’ Hotel. It was a…

How Britain fell for Saudi Arabia’s reforming Crown Prince

11 November 2017 9:00 am

There are two ways of seeing the extraordinary rise of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince: the blood-stained debut of a new…

‘The Incredulity of Thomas’, by Caravaggio. (c.1603). It is only in St John’s Gospel that Thomas is portrayed as unbelieving

A Muslim’s insights into Christianity

28 October 2017 9:00 am

I’m not a critic, I’m an enthusiast. And when you are an enthusiast you need to try your best to…

The Kurds are on their own

21 October 2017 9:00 am

The routing of Isis in northern Iraq ought to be a time of international celebration, but as ever in the…

Low life

21 October 2017 9:00 am

On Saturday night, I toddled up to the village hall for the fish-and-chip supper, quiz night and raffle — bring…

Iran is our natural ally

2 September 2017 9:00 am

The Saudi town of Awamiya — like so many countless cities across Iraq, Syria and Yemen that are witnessing an…

High life

22 July 2017 9:00 am

I switch personalities at Spectator parties, depending who the guests are: for our readers’ tea party, I am a warm…

King of heavy metal Bruce Dickinson at Madison Square Gardens in 1983

Meet the fans who risk death for heavy metal

14 May 2016 9:00 am

We in the West may snigger at heavy metal, but in some parts of the world its practitioners face the death penalty. Karen Yossman reports

Why the World Service is worth every penny

5 March 2016 9:00 am

What makes the World Service so different from the rest of the BBC? I asked Mary Hockaday, the controller of…

Portrait of the week

9 January 2016 9:00 am

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, decided to allow ministers to campaign for either side in the referendum on membership…

Why we have to stand by foul, brutal Saudi Arabia

9 January 2016 9:00 am

The Saudis have got the new year off to a busy start, haven’t they? The authorities executed 47 people, including…