Through our Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, the Atlantic Council works with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region.

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Meet our blogs

MENASource

MENASource follows movements across the region and provides news and analysis on current events, including a platform for Middle Eastern perspectives, among others, on major issues—economic, political, security, cultural—that are at stake in the post-Arab Spring era.  

IranSource

IranSource provides a holistic look at Iran’s internal dynamics, global and regional policies, and posture through unique analysis of current events and long-term, strategic issues related to Iran.

All commentary & analysis

New Atlanticist

Feb 12, 2019

The US-Iranian relationship: let’s try engagement

By David A. Wemer

“I simply do not see the conditions for another revolution.” He saw “no evidence that there is a social base in Iran that wants to see a radical change,” said Mohsen Milani, executive director of the University of South Florida’s Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies.

Financial Sanctions and Economic Coercion
Iran

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 […]

IranSource

Feb 6, 2019

Why Assad’s alliance with Iran and Hezbollah will endure

By Randa Slim

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. […]

Syria

IranSource

Feb 6, 2019

A pro-active new US policy toward Iran

By Barbara Slavin

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 […]

Iran

IranSource

Feb 6, 2019

The iron and depressing laws of US-Iran relations

By John Limbert

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 […]

Iran

IranSource

Feb 4, 2019

Iran and the women’s question

By Haleh Esfandiari

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 […]

Iran

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Feb 4, 2019

Protests are a permanent feature of Iran

By Nazila Fathi

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, […]

Civil Society
Human Rights

SyriaSource

Feb 1, 2019

Post-conflict, how will Iran preserve its presence in Syria?

By Ghaith al-Ahmad

The Youth Sports Club, once considered one of the most prominent soccer clubs in Deir Ezzor city in eastern Syria, now marks the beginning of Iran’s cultural penetration project in Syria.

Iran
Syria

IranSource

Feb 1, 2019

Iran’s economic performance since the 1979 Revolution

By Nadereh Chamlou

Forty years have passed since the Iranian Revolution—a revolution that promised to usher in democracy, freedom, and prosperity for all. Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, an influential cleric, recently exclaimed that Iran has progressed more in the last “forty years than it had in the 400 years prior.” Has it? This note offers some perspectives on selected economic […]

Iran
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