Research & Commentary Results

The full article can be found at Foreign Policy.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s re-election is in doubt thanks to an unassuming cleric who only recently entered the public spotlight. On April 9, Ebrahim Raisi, a longtime behind-the-scenes operative of the Islamic Republic closely associated with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared his candidacy in Iran’s May 19 presidential election.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has reacted angrily to the latest U.S. sanctions on the Tehran Prisons Organization and a top Iranian official for human rights abuses in the country.

Foreign ministers of Iran, Syria and Russia warned the United States against further military strikes in Syria and reiterated support for the government of Bashar al-Assad in a trilateral meeting in Moscow on Friday, the Iranian media reports.

The Syrian Army is preparing to launch a large-scale military offensive in the northern parts of Syria’s Hama Province, the Iranian media reports.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has

The spokesman of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (P.M.F.) reiterated today that its forces will play a leading role in military operations in the Iraqi provinces of Nineveh and Kirkuk – particularly in the strategic city of Tal Afar in western Mosul. “The Popular Mobilization Forces have a commanding and extensive presence and participation in operational zones in Nineveh Province,” P.M.F.

The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy (I.R.G.C.-N.)

The commander of Iran’s Army Ground Forces has announced an increase in the number and range of drones used during the Ground Forces’ operations across the country.

A top Iranian military commander has announced that the country’s Army Ground Force will commence the production lines of four “strategic” military products in the current Iranian year, wh

Unidentified gunmen killed two members of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) during a military operation on Wednesday in Zahedan, the capital of Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, the

President Donald Trump’s decision last week to militarily punish the regime of Bashar al Assad for using chemical weapons caught Syria’s closest ally Iran by surprise. Political and military leaders in Tehran are still uncertain whether the U.S. strikes were a one-time mission or represented a sea change in Washington’s policy in Syria. The Islamic Republic hopes it was the former, but there is a growing concern in Tehran that it may be the beginning of concerted efforts by Washington and its regional Sunni allies to topple Iran’s ally in Damascus.

Major General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.)’s elite Quds Force, has traveled to the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah as Kurdish political leaders are discussing plans to hold referendum on the political fate of the Iraqi Kurdistan region this year,

Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan today had separate phone conversations with his Russian and Syrian counterparts and warned that the United States should pay a heavy price for any future attacks against the regime of Iran’s ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Iranian media reported.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Randa Slim, Charles Lister, Gonul Tol, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the need for an overarching strategy in Syria following U.S. airstrikes, Secretary of State Tillerson’s upcoming visit to Moscow, the likely aftermath of U.S. airstrikes in Syria, Turkey’s growing frustration with U.S. strategy in Syria, and the rise of a hardliner challenger to Rouhani in the upcoming Iranian presidential election.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that the United States committed a “strategic mistake” by attacking Syria, the Iranian media reported.