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Oct 8, 2024

A bipartisan Iran strategy for the next US administration—and the next two decades

As tensions spike in the Middle East, how should the next US president approach Iran and its network of proxies including Hezbollah and Hamas? With a strategy that can be maintained for decades, by administrations of either party. A bipartisan, expert working group lays out the details.

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IranSource

Oct 22, 2018

Dealing With Saudi Arabia Requires Lessons From Iran’s Global Assassination Campaign

By Gissou Nia

Gruesome details of the possible premeditated killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi state actors are gradually being revealed. This has invited inevitable comparisons between the brutality of Saudi Arabia to its regional rival, Iran. While the comparisons have prompted a fair number of social media snipes and tu quoque arguments, the parallels here […]

Iran Saudi Arabia

IranSource

Oct 19, 2018

Signs of a Spectacular Policy Shift in Iran

By Shahir Shahidsaless

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supported by religious conservatives, has the last word on major Iranian policy decisions, including relations with the United States. His long-standing position has been “no talks, no relations with America,” especially after US unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May. But there are signs that this hard line […]

Iran

IranSource

Oct 18, 2018

Iran’s Environmentalists Are Caught Up in a Political Power Struggle

By Tara Sepehri Far

The family of Kavous Seyed Emami, a prominent environmentalist and professor at Tehran’s Imam Sadegh University, broke the horrific news on February 10 that he had died under suspicious circumstances while in detention. Iranian authorities claimed he had committed suicide. Only a few weeks earlier, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence arm had arrested […]

Iran

IranSource

Oct 17, 2018

Iran’s Natural Gas: A Gateway to US-Iran Cooperation

By Alan W. Lancaster and Thang Q. Tran

The broad economic sanctions that go back into effect against Iran on November 5 will not significantly impact Iran’s limited natural gas exports. Iran’s export potential could emerge as a gateway to cooperation under an appropriate US strategy. Multinational negotiations have focused on ways to increase oil production to compensate for Iranian oil lost to […]

Iran

IranSource

Oct 16, 2018

FATF Legislation Reflects Continuing Political Divide in Iran

By Tahereh Hadian-Jazy

Enacting legislation against money laundering and terrorism financing has been a long struggle between the Iranian parliament, which is dominated by moderate conservatives and reformists, and the Guardian Council, whose members are largely appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader. Parliament passed several laws in time for a meeting that began October 14 of the Financial Action […]

Iran

EnergySource

Oct 15, 2018

How oil turns antagonists to allies

By Ellen Wald

Oil market dynamics can make for strange bedfellows, as overlapping economic interests can often trump entrenched regional rivalries or bilateral strife. That is not to say that oil markets are not vulnerable to geopolitical events—they are. Probably the most well-known and often cited example of a geopolitical issue to effect oil markets was the 1973 […]

Energy Markets & Governance Iran

IranSource

Oct 15, 2018

Why the Trump Administration Needs More Balance in the Middle East

By Barbara Slavin

In quitting the Iran nuclear deal and doubling down on traditional US alliances, the Trump administration has forfeited key leverage and reduced its ability to resolve conflicts in the Middle East. Some readjustment in US policy after the Barack Obama administration was expected and potentially useful. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia felt that the US […]

Iran

IranSource

Oct 12, 2018

Iranian Crackdown on Corruption May Only Be Superficial

By Holly Dagres

Since the 1979 revolution, Azadi Square has been the beating heart for major demonstrations in Iran’s capital. So when the Iranian judiciary announced on September 24 that “financial corruptors” would be hung in the square—a first—it was seen as a dire warning to corrupt traders and government officials that they would be made an example of for […]

Iran

IranSource

Oct 11, 2018

Iran Can’t Fulfill Its Hopes of a Shia Corridor Without Iraq

By Avi Melamed

Since the Iranian regime seized power in 1979, its goal has been for Iran to become a regional power and to restore the Shias as the rulers of the Muslim world. A cornerstone of its strategy is to build and control a land corridor stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea. To extend its power […]

Iran Iraq

IranSource

Oct 10, 2018

Sanctions or Liquidity—Which One Is More Dangerous for Iran’s Economy?

By Hoorozan

The Iranian rial was traded at 150,000 against the US dollar on October 2, indicating a 12 percent appreciation in just one day. Bonbast, a website which tracks free market rates in Iran, stopped posting rates for the day, while state news agencies reported that the free market rial value kept appreciating as high as […]

Iran

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