December Show 2009.

Iran and Israel, What is the problem? Do they hate each other, or this is all internal rhetoric?

Friday Dec. 11, 2009
9 AM on KBOO 90.7 fm
Webcast on www.kboo.fm

Listen to this interview with Marsha Cohen and Patrick Disney of NIAC, Click Here!



Dr. Marsha B. Cohen is a Fellow of Florida International University's Middle East Studies Center. Her research focuses on the role of religion in international affairs, particularly in political discourse. She taught for over a decade at FlU, specializing in International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa.. She covers Israel-Iranian relations for TehranBureau, now affiliated with PBS/Frontline and has written for the global news agency InterPress Service (IPS). Her book Lions and Roses: the Politics of Religion in Israel and Iran, is in the process of being edited for publication.

September 2009 Show

Human Rights Violation in Iran after the Elections
Friday Sep. 11, 2009
KBOO 90.7 fm
Click here to listen to this recording!

An interview with Dr. Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran about the situations in Iran in aftermath of the elections fraud and people uprising. Thousands of the regular people and reform activists are still in prison 80 days after the elections. We will also hear about the welcoming ceremonies planned for president Ahmadinejad in New York while he visits the UN general assembly.

Hadi Ghaemi is the director of International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran[1], which is a project of the Dutch Foundation for Human Security in the Middle East. Ghaemi was formerly the Iran and United Arab Emirates researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.[4] He holds a PhD in Physics.

July 2009 Show

An interview on sociological analysis of the recent events in Iran with Professor Mahmoud Sadri, Texas Woman's University, and Professor Hossein Farahani, Portland States University, and Professor Ahmad Sadri, Lake Forest College, Chicago.

To listen to this recording, Please click here!


Mahmoud Sadri is a professor of sociology at the Federation of North Texas Area Universities that includes Texas Woman's University, University of North Texas , and A&M University , Commerce. His major interests include Sociology of Religion, Sociology of Culture, and Theoretical Sociology.

Dr. Sadri regularly contributes to popular journals and newspapers in his native country, Iran, and grants interviews to radio and television programs such as BBC, Radio France, Voice of America, and Radio Australia. Also, he writes op. ed pieces for Daily StarDaily Telegraph, Newsweek, and Time have carried interviews, profiles, and quotations from him in the recent years., The Guardian, UK . The New York Times, Fort Worth

For a pre-election prediction of Dr. Sadri Click here!
Professor Sam Hosein Farahani is an International studies visiting scholar at Middle East Studies Center at Portland State University.

Ahmad Sadri is Professor of Sociology and James P. Gorter Chair of Islamic World Studies at Lake Forest College. He received his BA and MA degrees at the University of Tehran and his PhD from the New School for Social Research. Sadri is the author of Max Weber’s Sociology of Intellectuals (Oxford University Press 1992, 94) and editor and translator (from Persian) of Reason Freedom and Democracy in Islam (Oxford University Press, 2000) and (from Arabic) Saddam City (Saqi Press, 2002.) Sadri has authored three books in Persian published by Kavir, and Hermes Press, Tehran. He has also functioned as a columnist for Daily Star of Lebanon and a commentator at National Public Radio in Chicago.

Please Note that the Voices of the Middle East has now moved from Thursday nights to Friday mornings at 9 AM.

June 30, 2009 Talk Show.

Iranian Green Wave movement for democracy and US Left's skepticism

Why were ellections in Iran rigged? What Iranian Demonstrators want? Is the Green Wave in Iran another CIA staged colour revolution? for some answers KBOO's special talk show host Goudarz Eghtedari interviews Professors Hamid Dabashi and Kaveh Ehsany. Please Click Here to listen to this recording!

Hamid Dahbashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and
Comparative Literature at Columbia University's Middle East Studies, and Kaveh Ehsani is Professor of International Studies at DePaul University, Chicago and an editor of Middle East Report.

Iranian Elections, the day after...

An interview with Professor Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University, on the 10th Presidential Elections in Iran.

Click here to listen to this interview!


Born on June 15, 1951 into a working class family in the south-western city of Ahvaz in the Khuzestan province of Iran, Hamid Dabashi received his early education in his hometown and his college education in Tehran, before he moved to the United States, where he received a dual Ph.D. in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

He is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, the oldest and most prestigious Chair in Iranian Studies. He has also taught and delivered lectures in many North American, European, Arab and Iranian universities.

June 2009 Show

Reflections on President Obama’s speech in Cairo and upcoming elections in Iran; A live interview with Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco, and Farideh Farhi, University of Hawaii, Manoa.
Click Here to listen to this show on-demand!


Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco , where he chairs the program in Middle Eastern Studies. A native of North Carolina , Professor Zunes received his PhD. from Cornell University , his M.A. from Temple University and his B.A. from Oberlin College . He has previously served on the faculty of Ithaca College , the University of Puget Sound , and Whitman College . He serves as a senior policy analyst for the Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, and chair of the academic advisory committee for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

Professor Zunes is the author of scores of articles for scholarly and general readership on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, international terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, strategic nonviolent action, and human rights. He is the principal editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell Publishers, 1999), the author of the highly-acclaimed Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) and co-author (with Jacob Mundy) of the forthcoming Western Sahara: Nationalism, Conflict, and International Accountability (Syracuse University Press.)



Dr. Farideh Farhi is an independent researcher and an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Her publications include States and Urban-Based Revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua (1990), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on comparative analysis of revolutions, contemporary Iranian politics and foreign policy. Her writings also appear on numerous webzines such as "Informed Comment". I'll interview her about the elections in Iran this Friday and the challenge that President Ahmadinejad is facing with 3 opponents that are gaining ground.

April 2009 Show

Morocco a look from afar – Literature of North Africa, Religion and the Moroccan Society

An interview with Moroccan author Professor Laila Lalami, UC Riverside
and Professor Kambiz Ghanebasiri, Reed College.

Click here to listen to this show!

Laila Lalami was born and raised in Morocco . She earned her B.A. in English from Université Mohammed V in Rabat , her M.A. from University College , London , and her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Southern California . Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an Oregon Literary Arts grant and a Fulbright Fellowship. She was short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing (the “African Booker”) in 2006. Her debut collection of short stories, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, was published in the fall of 2005 and has since been translated into Spanish, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Norwegian. Her first novel, Secret Son, will be published in the spring of 2009. She is currently Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California Riverside .

Kambiz GhaneaBassiri was born in Tehran , Iran , and grew up in the United States . He has a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University . He has taught Islamic studies in the religion and humanities department at Reed College since 2002.

Kambiz was asked by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Religious Endowments in Morocco to lead curricular reform efforts at Dar Al Hadith Al Hassania. The Islamic seminary, which has begun teaching non-Islamic religions and non-Islamic languages as well as philosophy and social sciences, asked GhaneaBassiri to direct academic affairs during the 2006-2007 academic years.

Professor Ghanebasiri, a Carnegie Scholar, currently works on his first book "Islam in America".

February 2009 Show

Iranian Islamic Revolution, 30 years later; Two views from accross the oceans. Goudarz Eghtedari speaks with Ambassador John Limbert

Thursday February 12th, 2009
6-7 PM on KBOO 90.7 fm
Click here to listen to this show on-demand!

February marks the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran . One of the most significant events in the Middle East in the last half century, it dramatically changed the political balance of power in the region and created one of the US’s greatest foreign policy challenges. The revolution caught all the western intelligence agencies off-guard. The Shah’s monarchy, characterized by President Carter a year earlier as the Island of Tranquility , had disappeared and a revolutionary government unlike anything seen before had taken over the most valuable US ally in the Persian Gulf .

US-Iran relations have regrettably gone from bad to worse over the past 3 decades. During this same period, Iran has gained great influence in the region and is a major player in all Middle East arenas – Iraq and Palestine in particular. Many analysts of foreign affairs today agree that having a normal relationship with Iran is critical if the US goal for stability of the Middle East is to be realized.

Ambassador Limbert first joined the Foreign Service in 1973, and his overseas experience also included tours in Algeria , Djibouti , Iran , Saudi Arabia , and the United Arab Emirates . From 1981 to 1984 he taught Political Science at the U.S. Naval Academy, and in 1991-92 he was a Senior Fellow at Harvard University 's Center for International Affairs. Ambassador Limbert was president of the American Foreign Service Association (2003-2005) and Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (2000-2003).

John Limbert was appointed Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at the U.S. Naval Academy in August 2006 after retiring from the Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor. His last postings before retirement were as Dean of the Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies and, on temporary assignment, as Chief of Mission in Khartoum , Sudan .

Born in Washington , D.C. , John Limbert graduated from the D.C. public schools and holds his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Harvard University , the last in History and Middle Eastern Studies. Before joining the Foreign Service, he taught in Iran , both as a Peace Corps Volunteer (1964-66) and as an English instructor at Shiraz University (1969-72). He has written numerous articles on Middle Eastern subjects and has authored Iran : At War with History (Westview Press, 1987) and Shiraz in the Age of Hafez ( University of Washington Press , 2004).

Ambassador Limbert holds the Department of State's highest award -- the Distinguished Service Award and Award for Valor, which he received after fourteen months as a hostage in Iran . He also holds the American Foreign Service Association's Rivkin Award for creative dissent. His foreign languages are Persian, Arabic, and French. He is married to the former Parvaneh Tabibzadeh, and has a son, a daughter and two grandchildren.

January 2009 Show

Gaza; a humanitarian catastrophe in making- A live interview with Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco, and Isaac Luria, JStreet.

Click here to listen to this show!


Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco , where he chairs the program in Middle Eastern Studies. A native of North Carolina , Professor Zunes received his PhD. from Cornell University , his M.A. from Temple University and his B.A. from Oberlin College . He has previously served on the faculty of Ithaca College , the University of Puget Sound , and Whitman College . He serves as a senior policy analyst for the Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, and chair of the academic advisory committee for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

Professor Zunes is the author of scores of articles for scholarly and general readership on Middle Eastern politics, U.S. foreign policy, international terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, strategic nonviolent action, and human rights. He is the principal editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell Publishers, 1999), the author of the highly-acclaimed Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) and co-author (with Jacob Mundy) of the forthcoming Western Sahara: Nationalism, Conflict, and International Accountability (Syracuse University Press.)



Isaac Luria, Online Campaigns Director. Isaac joins J Street after 4 years of experience in online organizing and consulting, 2 years of which he spent at the online marketing firm Donordigital in San Francisco . Isaac received his Bachelors degree in American Studies from Trinity College in Hartford , Connecticut . During 2007-2008, Isaac lived in Jerusalem , Israel as a Dorot Fellow. Isaac lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Sara, who is studying to become a Reform Rabbi.

ABOUT J STREET

J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement. J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. J Street supports a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region.

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