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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Lebanon’s Elections: Hezbollah in the Driver’s Seat?

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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Lebanon’s Elections: Hezbollah in the Driver’s Seat?

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

Lebanon’s Elections: Hezbollah in the Driver’s Seat?

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

May 24, 2018

Lebanon’s Elections: Hezbollah in the Driver’s Seat?

By Mona Alami

Hezbollah’s emergence as the strongest political faction during the Lebanese May elections confirms Iran’s sway over Lebanon, with the party now capable of securing an unchallenged veto at the parliamentary level and an absolute majority if it secures the right alliances. The recent electoral results also underline Hezbollah’s continued grip over its community despite ongoing […]

Iran Middle East

IranSource

May 24, 2018

Trump’s Plan B for Iran

By Matthew Kroenig

Several years ago, Henry Kissinger famously stated that Iran must decide if it wants to be a country or a cause. On May 21, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo re-articulated this question, offering Iran a sharp choice: to be welcomed back into the community of nations if it abandons its destabilizing security policies or […]

Iran

IranSource

May 22, 2018

Iran’s Hijab Protests Are a Middle Class Phenomenon

By Tahereh Hadian-Jazy

The day before widespread protests broke out in Iran last December, Vida Movahed, 31, stood on a utility box in Tehran, took off her white headscarf and waved it before a crowd. In the weeks since then, dozens of other women have done the same, earning the nickname the “Women of Enghelab [Revolution] Street.” Their acts of […]

Iran

IranSource

May 21, 2018

Can the European Union’s Sanctions Blocking Regulation Save the Iran Nuclear Deal?

By Brian O'Toole

The European Union (EU) on May 18 announced that it was beginning the process to activate its proposed blocking regulation, initially proposed in 1996 to try to counteract what the EU saw as the extraterritorial reach under the United States’ Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) and Cuba sanctions program. Those disagreements were settled politically with the […]

Iran

IranSource

May 21, 2018

Pompeo’s ‘Plan B’ on Iran: Accurate Diagnosis, Inadequate Cure

By Barbara Slavin

In an audacious speech before the Heritage Foundation on May 21, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined a litany of complaints about the nuclear deal with Iran that accurately reflected some of its gaps, but offered no realistic remedies. Pompeo’s prescription to achieve his “Plan B”—“unprecedented financial pressure on the Iranian regime”—is unlikely to […]

Iran

IranSource

May 21, 2018

Dropping the Hammer

By Brian O'Toole

The Trump administration, acting through Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has wasted no time in setting a harried pace of Iran-related designations to up the pressure after the president announced the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on May 8. In the seven business days following that fateful […]

Iran

IranSource

May 21, 2018

The Regional Consequences of Trump’s Decision to Ditch the Iran Nuclear Deal

By Rachel Ansley

Though Iran has thus far remained in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the US decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal could be the first domino to fall, setting off a chain of escalatory events throughout the region.  “This change is US policy is happening at a time when the region […]

Iran Iraq

IranSource

May 18, 2018

The Iran Nuclear Deal’s Accidental Achievement

By Suzanne Kianpour

US President Donald J. Trump delivered on his campaign promise and finally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal; a giant question mark looms. When the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was agreed in July 2015, the priority for the P5+1 was to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The United […]

Iran

IranSource

May 18, 2018

The Iran Deal Without America

By Mehran Haghirian

In the aftermath of the US announcement that it was quitting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the other signatories are struggling to convince Iran to remain within the agreement. European officials have been particularly outspoken, reflecting anger at a potentially fatal blow to a signature diplomatic achievement that touches their core security concerns. […]

European Union International Organizations

IranSource

May 17, 2018

Iran’s Salafi Jihadis

By Scheherezade Faramarzi

Last year’s attacks in Tehran by Islamic State recruits reflect Shia Iran’s ambiguous, inconsistent and at times contradictory relationship with Sunni Salafists. While tough on extremist groups threatening its sovereignty or military presence in Syria, the Iranian government has often turned a blind eye to such groups to allow them to fight US forces in […]

Iran
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