The New Yorker

Iran's Technicolor Election 
By Robin  Wright
My piece for The New Yorker on Iran's Technicolor Election. To help voters choose among 6,000 candidates in a (yes, only!) eight-day campaign, new coalitions have selected colors: Turquoise for the Universal Coalition of Reformers. Bright yellow for Grand Coalition of Principlists. Indigo for conservatives. Pity the color blind voter! Lots at stake in this poll, which will pick a new parliament as well as an Assembly of Elections, a rough equivalent  of the College of Cardinals, as it selects the Supreme Leader, the ultimate authority in Iran. 
Read on...
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/irans-technicolor-elections?intcid=mod-latest

A Ceasefire in Syria? 
By Robin Wright 
My New Yorker piece on prospects for the new ceasefire in Syria--and the daunting odds against it. Trust the Russians? (Really? Remember Ukraine.) Trust the Syrian regime to comply? (No brainer.) And then there's the nasty little fact that ISIS is not part of the deal. (The beheaders.)
And yet, after at least 250,000 dead, 4 million refugees and 13.5 million dependent on humanitarian aid for daily survival, there's nothing else visible. Read on...
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-ceasefire-in-syria?intcid=mod-latest

The New Yorker

Iran's Revolutionary Grandchildren
By Robin Wright 
My New Yorker piece on the grandchildren of Iran's revolution--and how their fate reflects the tensions within Iran on the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's return from exile to replace the monarchy with a theocracy and on the eve of pivotal elections that will determine Iran's future. 
Read on....

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/irans-revolutionary-grandchildren?intcid=mod-latest

The New Yorker

Beastie Boys and Girls:

The New Anthropomorphism
By Robin Wright 
I had so much fun writing this piece!
Turns out it’s perfectly human to imagine ourselves as animals. In Britain, an Oxford don decided to experience life as a badger, slithering on the ground and eating worms. The Furry Movement holds conventions for fur-suited humans whose spirits “align” more with animals. On Twitter, users who tweet as pandas, cobras, cats and other animals have accumulated huge followings. @bronxzooscobra has as many followers on Twitter as Bernie Sanders. Who knew!
The human imagination is utterly amazing.
Read on....
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/beastie-boys-and-girls-the-new-anthropomorphism

The New Yorker

Female Genital Mutilation--Now 200 million 
By Robin Wright 
My New Yorker piece on a stunning UN finding that it had underestimated the number of little girls whose genitals had been scrapped, pricked or sliced--by 70 million. The new numbers mean that at least two hundred million girls and women across the globe (including thousands in the United States) have gone through "female genital mutilation." The UN reports that the trend is now global, not just in Africa. The UN has declared it an “irreversible human-rights violation.”

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/female-genital-mutilation-the-numbers-keep-rising