Around this time last year, nostalgia abounded as Iranians inside and outside of the country recounted their memories of the Iranian revolution three decades prior. The Islamic regime, having rolled out the red carpet to commemorate yet another important milestone, looked as impregnable as ever before, and all eyes were on Washington and the new American president to see how he might impact the next evolutionary phase of the 30-year-old Iranian revolution. The idea that the course of this next phase might be dictated not by external actors, but by elements from within Iran itself seemed far-fetched. What a difference […]

In the 11 years since Hugo Chávez became president of Venezuela, the country has experienced almost constant political and economic drama. The past decade brought a cinematic — and ultimately failed — coup d’état against the president, a national strike that brought the economy to its knees, border disputes complete with tank deployments, and a string of controversial nationalizations of private businesses, to name just a few of the remarkable developments that have marked the Age of Chávez. Despite the stiff competition of years past, though, 2010 is already taking shape as a year of reckoning for the country, the […]