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Ahmad Khalid Majidyar is a Middle East & South Asia analyst with a focus on Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was previously a senior fellow and the director of IranObserved Project at the Middle East Institute.
From 2008 to 2015, Majidyar worked as a senior research associate at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he co-authored two monographs on Iran: Iranian Influence in the Levant, Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan (AEI 2012), and The Shi’ites of the Middle East: An Iranian fifth column? (AEI 2014). He also published a number of research papers on Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As an instructor with the Naval Postgraduate School’s Leadership Development and Education for Sustained Peace program (2008-2016), Majidyar provided graduate-level seminars to more than 3,000 U.S. and NATO military leaders on Afghanistan and the broader region. In addition, he has provided briefings on Iran and Afghanistan at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Joint IED Defeat Organization, the National Defense University, the State Department, and Congress; and he has spoken as a guest analyst at think tanks, universities, and world affairs councils.
Majidyar’s articles on Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been published in Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Fareed Zakaria’s GPS, Fox News, U.S. News & World Report, Daily Telegraph, and Forbes, among others. He has also discussed Middle Eastern topics on the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera English, Sky News, CBC Canada, Bloomberg News and Voice of America’s Dari, Farsi, Urdu and English services.
Previously, Majidyar worked as a media analyst with the BBC Monitoring in Afghanistan and as a humanitarian aid worker with the UNHCR in Pakistan.
Anwar Mohamad Gargash, the minister of state for foreign affairs of the United Arab Emirates, blamed Iran’s “interventionism” for the war and human suffering in Yemen.
The Iranian media extensively covered Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud’s recent trip to Malaysia. State-run and semi-official outlets close to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.), in particular, discussed in details the growing economic and trade ties between Riyadh and Kuala Lumpur.
First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri has warned that soaring unemployment has become Iran’s “biggest challenge” and revealed that a staggering number of 500,000 Iranians are annually added to the list of those already without jobs in the country.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif blamed Western countries for the failure of international efforts to tackle drug trafficking and claimed that the Islamic Republic pays a high price for its contribution to combating the global illicit narcotics trade.
The daughter of Abdolfattah Soltani, a prominent human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, says hardline Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi is blocking the release of her father although he is legally eligible
Iran’s Fars News Agency (FNA), a mouthpiece of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.), has published interviews with Iraqi politicians and militia commanders about Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir’s February 25 visit to Baghdad and its potential implications for the war against the Islamic State and for Iraq’s relations with Iran.
The Iranian Navy on Sunday launched large-scale maritime exercises near the strategic Strait of Hormuz by showcasing warships, submarines and attack helicopters as well as test-firing new, advanced missiles. According to the Iranian media, the naval drills marked the last phase of Iranian Navy’s annual war game – dubbed “Velayat 95” – and covered an area of two million square kilometers, stretching from the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman to north of the Indian Ocean and Bab al-Mandab Strait.
As the Trump administration is considering designating Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization,” two senior Iranian civilian leaders have strongly defended the I.R.G.C.’s military involvement in the Middle Eastern conflicts. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif this weekend praised the I.R.G.C.’s efforts to fight “terrorism” in the region and argued that Washington’s threat of designating Iran’s elite military unit will be futile.
A number of Iranians gathered in front of the country’s parliament on Saturday to protest the execution of drugs-related offenders, the Iranian media reports.
While the Iranian hardline media largely ignored the Oscar victory by the country’s world-renowned director Asghar Farhadi, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif hailed Farhadi’s accomplishment and used the occasion to attack the Trump administration’s plan to temporarily ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations, including Iran.
An article published yesterday in Saudi daily Al Jazirah questioned the sincerity of President Hassan Rouhani’s diplomatic outreach to the Gulf Arab countries and called the Iranian president’s recent trip to Oman and Kuwait a “public relations” campaign to portray a positive image of Iran to domestic and international aud
In the latest episode of escalating diplomatic tension between Tehran and Ankara, Iran’s foreign minister today blasted latest statements by Turkish officials accusing Iran of destabilizing the Middle East and fueling sectarian divide in the region.
President Donald Trump’s plan to establish safe zones in Syria continues to raise questions in Iran.
