<![CDATA[Helmet to Heels®]]>https://www.helmettoheels.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!rrxT!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbadb8bcf-851e-4f84-adcf-204d866fb9c6_500x500.pngHelmet to Heels®https://www.helmettoheels.comSubstackSat, 30 May 2026 16:00:10 GMT<![CDATA[🎙️The Ensemble: Why I took a week to process the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-why-i-took-a-week-tohttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-why-i-took-a-week-toMon, 04 May 2026 04:11:32 GMTThe truth is how do you even begin to unpack not only what happened last weekend but moreso how quickly we moved on from it - and the exposure of the very media the evening was supposed to be celebrating? A gunman hell-bent on assassinating the President of the United States, members of his administration, and anyone else in his way, breached security a…

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]]><![CDATA[Iran: You Don’t Negotiate with a Snake]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/iran-you-dont-negotiate-with-a-snakehttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/iran-you-dont-negotiate-with-a-snakeFri, 01 May 2026 23:25:29 GMT
brown and black snake
Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash

You don’t reason with something whose incentives are fixed. You don’t compromise with a force that survives by your submission - or calls for your death, as political leaders in the Islamic Republic of Iran have done for forty-seven years.

Sir Winston Churchill famously said, “you cannot reason with a tiger when your head …

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]]><![CDATA[🎙️ Women Building Fashion Studies: Valerie Steele ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/women-building-fashion-studies-valeriehttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/women-building-fashion-studies-valerieFri, 01 May 2026 15:26:54 GMT Read more

]]><![CDATA[The Anatomy of a Revolution]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-anatomy-of-a-revolutionhttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-anatomy-of-a-revolutionMon, 20 Apr 2026 00:21:10 GMTA personal essay from our guest contributor Rouzy Vafaie who appears to be the H2H Forrest Gump…

BUDAPEST (H2H)—I was in Iran during the January uprising. At first, it was shop owners shuttering because of hyper-inflation and the increasingly rapid weakening of the currency. Then came the power of the people of Iran to stand up against the tyrannical rul…

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]]><![CDATA[🎙️The Ensemble: Swalwell that ends well ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-swalwell-that-ends-wellhttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-swalwell-that-ends-wellMon, 13 Apr 2026 04:11:27 GMTIs it just me or was this week three years long? Can you believe it was only Tuesday when the President of the United States posted a threat to end an entire civilization in Iran? Only to then bait and switch and attempt to gaslight us by declaring the regime has in fact been changed after a Pakistan brokered two week ceasefire was announced? Followed b…

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]]><![CDATA[From the Laboratory to the Presidency: a unique perspective on the global chessboard]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/from-the-laboratory-to-the-presidencyhttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/from-the-laboratory-to-the-presidencyMon, 13 Apr 2026 01:11:20 GMTAmeenah Gurib-Fakim is more than a former head of state revisiting old battles.

During a Global Power Shifts conversation with Suzanne Kianpour and Jim Stenman, Mauritius’s first female president speaks like someone still fully engaged with the pressures bearing down on small states, African leadership and the fight for credibility in a rougher world. He…

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]]><![CDATA[Iran Peace Talks: Send a Madman to Catch a Madman]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/iran-peace-talks-send-a-madman-tohttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/iran-peace-talks-send-a-madman-toSat, 11 Apr 2026 18:39:06 GMT
White House Pool Photo

This morning I woke up to a text from Tehran: “Look, we were never fans of the Islamic Republic. But Trump drew the line so badly that now all Iranians — regime and everyone else — are basically on the same side against this madman.”

Meanwhile to the East across the Iranian-Pakistani border, New York Times reports: “An American del…

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]]><![CDATA[The Japan Handbag Arbitrage]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-japan-handbag-arbitragehttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-japan-handbag-arbitrageThu, 09 Apr 2026 00:46:33 GMTOn an icy Friday afternoon here in D.C., I somehow convinced my mom to make a quick ice cream stop after she picked me up from school at the Cathedral. I hopped in the car, and we were on our way into the city for a quick pitstop. It was supposed to be simple. In, out, gelato, back in the car before my face went numb. My eyes were super-focused on the p…

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]]><![CDATA[Why Iranian 'Regime Change' is a Lie]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/why-iranian-regime-change-is-a-liehttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/why-iranian-regime-change-is-a-lieWed, 08 Apr 2026 18:21:03 GMT
Get more from Suzanne Kianpour in the Substack app
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]]><![CDATA[WATCH: Escaping IRGC detention, exclusive eyewitness testimony and pictures from inside Iran ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/watch-escaping-irgc-detention-exclusivehttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/watch-escaping-irgc-detention-exclusiveThu, 02 Apr 2026 09:37:27 GMTI’ve known Rouzy Vafaie for many years; unusually he’s a US / Iranian dual national who’s felt confident enough to live inside Iran, even as the war began. We’ve been in touch throughout, even though communicating with people outside Iran, let alone with journalists, carries huge risk. He told me he was planning to leave via the border with Armenia, but…

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]]><![CDATA[How to be media literate in a sea of propaganda ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/how-to-be-media-literate-in-a-seahttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/how-to-be-media-literate-in-a-seaTue, 31 Mar 2026 15:11:33 GMTOne evening in 2014, I was walking home to my flat in Beirut admiring the Lebanese sunset along the corniche and found myself humming a melancholic tune. When I stopped to analyze what song it was that had gotten stuck in my head, I was horrified. It was the ISIS theme song, the murderous terrorist group that was wreaking havoc in the Middle East, beheading “kafirs,” raping and kidnapping women only to turn them into slaves. The group was committing atrocities in the name of religion and yet recruits were joining them. Why? Expert, emotion evoking propaganda.

Sound familiar? The Iranian regime - who calls itself the Islamic Republic of Iran while executing a teenager in the name of God on Eid al Fitr marking the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, is at the same time putting out admittedly hilarious meme style videos trolling Donald Trump - and the left and those aggrieved with Israel and the US, are lapping it up. I find none of this surprising as I co-authored this investigation for the Atlantic Council in 2020 on Iranian digital influence efforts warning of the sophisticated messaging tools they were refining.

The goal is for the lego videos - which I won’t link to help their views - to soften the regime’s image and distract from their atrocities, especially towards women. What this so-called Islamic Republic has done to women in prison will make your skin crawl - just ask whose grandmother survived years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, the subject of an animated short documentary I am the Executive Producer of, That Night.

Maryam has spent her career shaping narratives at the highest levels of American communications. Now she’s working to help especially those new to the subject of the Iranian regime and its history, understand that while they purport to be the anti-imperial resistance, the truth is far more sinister.

The price of propaganda got personal for me recently; I lost a friendship over it. Not over facts but over being told how I’m allowed to talk about them.

“Please stop using the word Islam when you refer to them, it’s very offensive.”

Asked to soften it, to stop naming what it is, to blur the line between a regime and the religion it weaponizes when that line is the whole point. I patiently explained, poked holes in their narrative but my messages went unread, uninterested in the inconvenient truth. Ghosted. Unfollowed. As if telling the truth of what I’ve seen, what I’ve reported, what people I trust and vetted have lived through, was the real offense flying in the face of a system that felt more comfortable to believe despite it being a lie.

So this video is a PSA more than anything, and I hope you’ll join us.

]]><![CDATA[🎙️The Ensemble: US official admits to mistakes made in Iran ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-us-official-admits-tohttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-us-official-admits-toMon, 30 Mar 2026 21:33:48 GMTWhile this newsletter was written in the fashion capital of the world in Milan, the last month has been far more helmet focused than heels. That’s right, we have in fact entered the second month of the war with Iran. Milan may be best known for style, but it’s also home to where the Italian people resoundingly rejected fascism by publicly putting on dis…

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]]><![CDATA[Confessions from The Situation Room: America's mistakes on Iran's 2009 Green Movement and the lessons for today ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/confessions-from-the-situation-roomhttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/confessions-from-the-situation-roomMon, 30 Mar 2026 20:14:23 GMT

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]]><![CDATA[🎙️The Ensemble: Persian New Year Edition ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-persian-new-year-editionhttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-persian-new-year-editionSat, 21 Mar 2026 05:31:45 GMTIt’s been a rough three weeks of global chaos since the start of the Iran war, so let’s begin with some good News with Suz: mercury retrograde is over, Spring has sprung, for Muslims their Ramadan fasting is finished and Punch - the most famous monkey in the world - appears to have found love, albeit unconfirmed.

I’ve watched the video probably 100 time…

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]]><![CDATA[Punch, Oran-Mama and the Internet Craze]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/punch-oran-mama-and-the-internethttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/punch-oran-mama-and-the-internetSat, 21 Mar 2026 01:00:54 GMTBREAKING NEWS WITH SUZ: Punch now has a girlfriend!

Or does he? Our latest fit check, fact check is a welcome reprieve from heavy global headlines as new video has emerged that may indicate brighter spirits for the monkey that captured hearts worldwide.

The world was recently introduced to Punch, the baby macaque at Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan. Abandone…

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]]><![CDATA[🎙️The Ensemble: Sons and Fathers in Iran's Leadership Stakes]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-sons-and-fathers-inhttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-sons-and-fathers-inThu, 12 Mar 2026 18:27:13 GMTGreetings from Washington DC where I’ve returned after a brief trip across the pond to celebrate a very special International Women’s Day with the Christening of my Goddaughter Stella - yes, breaking News with Suz, I am a Godmother.

I’ve been thinking about what kind of world we’re creating for our children, and weighing especially on my heart has bee…

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]]><![CDATA[Iran latest - how will the war end? WATCH]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/iran-latest-how-will-the-war-endhttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/iran-latest-how-will-the-war-endFri, 06 Mar 2026 23:09:15 GMT

]]><![CDATA[🎙️The Ensemble: 5 things you need to know about the war with the Islamic Republic of Iran]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-5-things-you-need-tohttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/the-ensemble-5-things-you-need-toWed, 04 Mar 2026 19:45:59 GMT Read more

]]><![CDATA[NEWS WITH SUZ LIVE: IRAN ATTACKS ]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/news-with-suz-live-iran-attackshttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/news-with-suz-live-iran-attacksSat, 28 Feb 2026 22:15:31 GMT
Get more from Suzanne Kianpour in the Substack app
Available for iOS and Android
]]><![CDATA[London Fashion Week : The Style of Resilience]]>https://www.helmettoheels.com/p/london-fashion-week-ua-in-ukhttps://www.helmettoheels.com/p/london-fashion-week-ua-in-ukTue, 24 Feb 2026 18:43:24 GMTThe air inside the venue is thick with a specific kind of electric anticipation, a high-frequency energy that only precedes a London Fashion Week debut; it’s a living, breathing ecosystem of style. A low, rhythmic hum of people chatting fills the hall - a flurry of stars draped in deconstructed denim, heavy silver hardware, and towering platform boots, …

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