IranSource

Iranian-Israeli hostility is actually quite odd. Tehran is well over a thousand miles from Jerusalem. The two countries do not border each other. They have no major bilateral claims toward one another. Whereas large Arab neighbors of Iran, like Iraq or Saudi Arabia, might be considered its natural competitors, Israel cannot. Even fans of the […]

Forty years have passed since disparate groups of revolutionaries—many of them united only in their opposition to the Imperial State of Iran’s alignment with the United States—toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Since then, hundreds of American scholars and practitioners have attempted to understand the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy and how to best respond to the […]

The Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah trilateral partnership has been decades in the making. It pre-dates the Syrian civil war, has strengthened as a result of the war and will likely endure in the post-war years. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, shared enmity of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Israel and the United States brought Damascus and Tehran together. […]

With the advent of another presidential election cycle in the United States, many US and foreign politicians and policy advocates have already begun thinking about recommendations for the next occupant of the White House. In both domestic and foreign affairs, it will not be sufficient to simply revisit decisions made by President Donald Trump but […]

Among the unalterable “laws of the Medes and the Persians” that have ruled US-Iran relations for decades are the following: Everything takes longer than you think. Everything is harder than you think. Whenever you begin to make progress, some bad fortune or stupidity will screw up everything. The first two are obvious. In the last […]

When I moved to Tehran twenty years ago, I wore a black manteau that stretched to my ankles and a headscarf pulled down to my forehead. By the time I graduated high school in 2005, my highlighted fuchsia hair stuck out like tentacles from a white shawl, and a matching manteau barely covered my rear. Such social changes, as […]

When it comes to women and the Islamic Republic, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” For forty years, women have resisted the Islamic Republic’s attempt to deny them rights previously won. They have waged a war—on the streets, in social media and even in the privacy of their homes—for equality and against the regime’s […]

July 15, 2009 was a historic day in Iran’s recent history. Some three million people marched in silence on Enghelab (Revolution) Street in the capital of Tehran to convey their anger at the Islamic Republic in the most peaceful manner. The regime had disconnected cell phone services in a failed effort to prevent the march, […]

A powerful trend at the international level—led by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia—is trying to sell the idea that Iran’s active regional presence, together with its missile program and location at several of the world’s geostrategic chokepoints, is an attempt to restore the Persian Empire and is a fundamental danger to global security. […]