Covering topics ranging from security and politics to business and society, IranSource draws on written analysis and multimedia content to inform a broader public conversation about Iran from an array of angles and perspectives.

It aims to identify the challenges, opportunities, and policy conundrums facing the US-Iran relationship and present a range of options to address them.

Editor: Holly Dagres

The views expressed in IranSource are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Another Sports-Mad Iranian American Reviews Jason Rezaian’s Memoir

IranSource
Nov 20, 2024

2025 will be a decisive year for Iran’s nuclear program

Diplomatic deadlines and regional factors will force Iran to decide soon whether to strike a deal or seek a nuclear weapon. Either choice will have major ripple effects.

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Another Sports-Mad Iranian American Reviews Jason Rezaian’s Memoir

IranSource
Nov 20, 2024

How to wrestle with an ayatollah 

By
Khosro Sayeh Isfahani

If one looks closely, the ancient Persian sport of wrestling might have answers to understanding how to contain Iran

Civil Society
Freedom and Prosperity

Another Sports-Mad Iranian American Reviews Jason Rezaian’s Memoir

IranSource
Nov 1, 2024

How the death of Abdul Malik al-Houthi could impact the Houthis and Iran

By
Emily Milliken and Caitlin Miller Hollingsworth

While Abdul Malik al-Houthi is still alive today, his death in the near term would impact the Houthi’s ability to operate and widen a leadership vacuum within Iran’s Resistance Axis.

Conflict
Iran

Content

IranSource

Feb 21, 2019

Another Sports-Mad Iranian American Reviews Jason Rezaian’s Memoir

By David Shams

The World Cup was over, Germany winning its first world title since 1990. Looking for something else to occupy my attention, this sports-obsessed Iranian American spotted an article in The Washington Post by Jason Rezaian about baseball in the Islamic Republic of Iran. As a child of an Iranian immigrant growing up in rural Kentucky, American sports […]

Iran

IranSource

Feb 20, 2019

Gloomy observations from Iran

By Sirous Amerian

One of the criticisms of Iran analysts usually thrown around on social media is that they haven’t lived in the country, visited it for a long time or speak the language. While not as well-known as some analysts, this author speaks the language, lived in Iran for twenty-eight years until two years ago and recently […]

Iran

IranSource

Feb 19, 2019

The Warsaw Summit: Not So ‘Anti-Iranian’ but Still a Success

By Robert Czulda

It is too early to assess the long-term consequences of the Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East. But for Poland and several other actors, the meeting can already been seen as a success. Poland, after hosting a NATO summit in 2016 and a UN Climate conference in 2018, […]

Iran Israel

IranSource

Feb 14, 2019

The Warsaw summit and effective multilateralism

By Sina Toossi

The Trump administration has sought to break out of its international isolation on Iran by pressuring nations to go to Warsaw for a summit on peace and security in the Middle East. But the administration has failed to craft an effective multilateral approach towards Iran based on common concerns and a realistic understanding of what […]

Iran

IranSource

Feb 14, 2019

How Iran has changed in forty years and what the future portends

By Barbara Slavin

Iran forty years after its Islamic revolution is facing a grave economic crisis and growing popular discontent. It continues to commit acts that deepen its isolation even as it benefits from the mistakes of its adversaries. US sanctions are more punishing than anticipated but will probably not cause Iran to alter policies of greatest concern […]

Iran

IranSource

Feb 13, 2019

Trump’s Iran Policy: Much Ado About Nothing

By Pooya Dayanim

The Trump administration’s policy of containing and weakening the Islamic Republic of Iran may appear to be going well to causal observers of Iranian affairs, and there is some evidence to support such a view. The United States has withdrawn from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action […]

Iran

IranSource

Feb 13, 2019

Moral Courage Needed for US to Engage Iran

By Thomas Buonomo

In his January 10 speech in Cairo, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described America as a “force for good in the Middle East.” “We need to acknowledge that truth, because if we don’t, we make bad choices [that will] have consequences for nations, for millions of people,” he said. “In falsely seeing ourselves as a force […]

Iran

IranSource

Feb 12, 2019

Poland Summit Strives for Stability in the Middle East

By Avi Melamed

The Trump administration accurately identified the Iranian threat and has, on some significant issues, acted accordingly—including the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the application of increasingly tough sanctions on Iran, as well as organizing the Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East in […]

Iran Israel

IranSource

Feb 8, 2019

Iran’s Revolution, 40 Years On: Israel’s Reverse Periphery Doctrine

By Natan Sachs

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 […]

Iran Israel

IranSource

Feb 8, 2019

The Islamic Republic’s foreign policy at forty

By Ariane M. Tabatabai

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 […]

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