Washington must decide if it will grant concessions that al-Kadhimi can use to convince Tehran to accept a sustained U.S. military presence.
For now, Tehran’s bottom-line objective in Iraq is for the Americans to stop urging Baghdad to cut Iran loose.
Iran’s once promising reformist movement is in a death spiral. It is not because the idea of reform has lost its appeal.
There is speculation in Tehran that a new round of dangerous retribution is just around the corner.
Initial data of Covid-19 mortality rates in the United States suggest that in several regions and cities, the virus hits minority communities harder than the general population. A similar trend has emerged in the Islamic Republic of Iran where published data indicates Iran’s ethnic minorities have higher Covid-19 fatality rates than the general Iranian population.
The United States and Iran are poised for a showdown. Understanding where we are today with this conflict and where we are likely to go in the future requires that we look at the conflicting strategic doctrines between the United States and Iran against a backdrop of a shifting Middle East.
COVID-19 presents a major threat to the global economy and the health of millions of people around the world, but its impact on Iran, one of the early epicenters of the outbreak, has been particularly severe.
The Islamic Republic’s unconventional alliance network reaches far and wide, and its workings have only intensified since the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in early January 2020. The systematic effort to consolidate these alliances, indicated by the swift appointment of Gen. Esmail Qaani and his new deputy Gen. Mohammad Hosseinzadeh Hejazi to lead the Quds Force, is about much more than just retaliation and revenge against the United States. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, a calibrated response to the Trump administration’s reckless and escalatory changes to the established “rules of engagement” between Washington and Tehran.
Blurring the lines between the physical world and the online one, the Iranian group known as the “Nakhsa Warriors” remains cloaked in mystery. Their identity and status are unclear. Are they a military force that carries out operations, an online group of like-minded individuals that share content, part of an Iranian disinformation campaign — or perhaps something else altogether?
Gonul Tol and Alex Vatanka join host Alistair Taylor to discuss how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting Iran, one of the first countries hit by the outbreak, and Turkey, where it arrived later but has since spread rapidly.
The U.S. government agenda for Central Asia and the South Caucasus has regularly included a multitude of goals. Whereas in the 1990s, U.S. policy focused on state building, economic development, WMD elimination, and democracy promotion, in the 2000s, counterterrorism rose to the forefront of the U.S. agenda.
COVID-19 is undoubtedly the biggest health crisis in our lifetime. Pundits around the world, but also a long list of policymakers from Washington to Abu Dhabi to Beijing, wonder about the long-term implications of this deadly pandemic. While there is plenty of speculation about how this crisis might re-balance global power dynamics, other foreign policy implications are more immediately tangible. In the case of the Middle East, the swift support shown by the UAE towards Iran, the most affected country in the region, has been refreshing.
Governments and citizens throughout North Africa are gearing up for a huge increase in coronavirus infections expected in late March, April, and May. Just next door, Italy and Spain are two of the five worst afflicted countries on the planet.
For more than a century, Iranian women have worked for change and fought for their freedom. Under the system in place in the Islamic Republic, however, they continue to face systematic, widespread legal discrimination. Despite the hurdles they currently face, with organization, unity, and common purpose, Iranian women are capable of changing history and building a new future for their country.
11 scholars and experts from across MEI weigh in with the latest on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the Middle East.