Research & Commentary Results

This article was first published on Al-Monitor.

President Hassan Rouhani’s recent trip to Turkmenistan cannot be dismissed as a one-off. Since coming to office in August 2013, the Rouhani administration has prioritized relations with the Muslim states of the former Soviet Union. Given the potential for economic ties and trade, Tehran’s aspirations are fully understandable.

This article was first published on CNN.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the Congress this week was as eagerly anticipated in Tehran as it was in Washington.

The Iranian reaction to the speech has been a combination of indignation and indifference.

This article was first published on Foreign Affairs.

When the Houthis, a Shia rebel group in Yemen, forced the country’s pro-Western president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to flee the capital this past January, many in the region concluded that another Arab state had fallen into Tehran’s lap—a result, as one prominent commentator put it, of Iran’s “offensive state, the likes of which we have not seen in modern history.”

Read full article at Politico Magazine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come to the United States, spoken his piece and returned home to Israel to finish campaigning for the March 17 elections. Netanyahu’s visit to Washington was neither the triumph he expected nor the disaster forecast by opponents of the visit. Indeed, the visit shed no new light on the supposedly central issue of the day: the state of play in the Iran negotiations.

This article was first published by The National Interest.

The Middle East is experiencing unprecedented upheaval, and by all indications the region is likely to remain in turmoil for the foreseeable future. From Yemen to Bahrain to Syria and Lebanon, the sectarian agendas and geopolitical maneuverings of the two regional heavyweights – Iran and Saudi Arabia – will likely remain the key drivers fueling the regional fire.

This article was first published by The National Interest.

The late January visit to Armenia by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif got little media attention, but it could have significant ramifications for geopolitics in Eurasia. Specifically, the trip could help Russia gain a trade outlet that softens the blow of Western sanctions.
 

This article first appeared in The National Interest.

Thanks to the unending American-Russian standoff over Ukraine, there are voices in Tehran that seem to believe that the road to international rehabilitation goes through Moscow.

Read the full article on Al-Monitor. 

At first glance, Iran appears to be unconvinced about Afghanistan’s new President Ashraf Ghani, and the feeling is probably mutual. Ghani chose Saudi Arabia, China and then Pakistan as the first countries to visit as president, and has yet to visit Tehran. 

It is no longer accurate to describe the war in Syria as a conflict between Syrian rebels on the one hand and Bashar al-Assad’s regime forces “supported” by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG), Hezbollah, and Iraqi militias on the other. Most major battles in Syria—along the frontlines of regime-held areas—are now being directed and fought by the IRG and Hezbollah, along with other non-Syrian Shi‘i militias, with Assad forces in a supportive or secondary role.

Expert American opinion on the outcome of last month’s nuclear negotiations with Iran is sharply divided. Those who want Iran to give up all enrichment technology are relieved that a “bad” deal was averted.

In his pursuit of foreign policy deals with Syria and Iran, President Obama has taken a soft approach. As a result, Syria and Iran have taken advantage with aggressive opportunism.

This paper is part of an MEI scholar series, titled “Obama’s Legacy in the Middle East: Passing the Baton in 2017.” Click here to view the full project, or navigate using the table of contents to the right.

Iranian women have long been in a cat-and-mouse game with the interpretation and enforcement of many aspects of Islamic law, but most especially the hijab. Since 1983, when the first written law was passed, the Islamic Republic has made it officially mandatory for women to wear the headscarf and loose clothing, with punishment for failing to comply ranging from lashes to imprisonment. Even before the law was passed, just a few strands of hair outside the scarf would not be tolerated.

Representing about 1% of the country’s 200 million Muslims, Indonesia’s Shi‘a are but a small group in the overwhelmingly Sunni majority. These contemporary communities of devotees of the ahl al-bayt (“people of the house,” referring to the Prophet Muhammad, his daughter Fatima, her husband ‘Ali, and their sons Hasan and Husayn) explain their identities, albeit with differences, in transregional terms. Recently, this transregional focus has turned from South Asia toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.