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Rebecca Anne Proctor is an independent journalist, editor, author, and broadcaster based in Dubai and Rome, from where she covers the Middle East and North Africa. She is the former editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar Art and Harper’s Bazaar Interiors.
Read the full article on the Washington Post.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Yousef Munayyer, Alex Vatanka, Jonathan M. Winer, and Marvin G. Weinbaum provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including President Trump’s trip to Israel and the prospects for a peace process, the reelection of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Russia’s planned naval drill off the coast of Libya this week, and the Afghan Taliban’s decision to reject peace talks.
On Monday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned the United States and its regional allies that stability in the Middle East cannot be achieved without Tehran’s help.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that the Islamic Republic would continue its ballistic missile program despite Washington’s concerns, the Iranian media reported. “American authorities should know that whenever we need to test a missile for technical reasons, we will carry it out. And we will not wait for them or their permission,” he said defiantly after U.S. and Saudi leaders criticized Tehran’s regional policies at the Riyadh summit.
Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces has blamed the United States for regional instability and claimed that the withdrawal of the U.S. forces would restore peace and security in the Middle East. “The only way to [restore] peace and tranquility to the region is the departure of the Americans and the renunciation of aggressive and terrorist operations by dependent and reactionary regimes against independent countries,” Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said on Sunday. His remarks were a reaction to the latest comments by U.S.
The editor of Iran’s most prominent hardline newspaper says President Hassan Rouhani’s “submissiveness” and campaign rhetoric have emboldened the United States and its Arab allies to threaten a military attack against the Islamic Republic. “Mr.
Read the full article on Foreign Policy.
Iran’s presidential vote is now a two-man race. Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf’s 11th-hour withdrawal means that incumbent Hassan Rouhani will face the 56-year-old Ebrahim Raisi, a close associate of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a man who was at the heart of the decision to mass execute political dissidents in the late 1980s.
The cinema has long been a contested space in Egypt. Following its nationalization in 1966, a formerly flourishing film industry ran steadily downhill and movie theater operators were subjected to censors’ increasingly puerile whims. The only independent company allowed to operate was Misr International Films—founded in 1972 by Egyptian director Youssef Chahine (1926-2008)—to produce, distribute, and exhibit films while coincidentally enabling the state to posit itself as an indulgent patron of cinematic art. The annual state-run Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF, est.
Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said today that his agency had foiled plots by several groups that wanted to disrupt the country’s security during the presidentia
The Hashd al-Shaabi – Iraqi paramilitary forces known as the Popular Mobilization Forces – captured an air base from the Islamic State on Thursday, the Iranian media reports.
“There are really big problems right now,” a conservative Islamist cleric close to Syria’s armed opposition told me – “al-Qaeda is trying to create a new loyal faction in Idlib, but that’s being prevented by al-Hayat.” As this influential cleric and four other similarly well-connected Islamist opposition figures have described to me in recent days, al-Qaeda’s central leadership is growing increasingly exasperated at its former Syrian affiliate – now named Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (H.T.S.), after a second rebrand in January 2017 – and is now actively seeking to build a rival movement more loyal
Four years ago, Hassan Rouhani assumed the Iranian presidency on the back of a campaign pledge to alleviate Iran’s economic hardship by striving for the removal of sanctions. With nuclear-related sanctions removed, blame for Iran’s continued economic misery has either been put on remaining U.S. unilateral sanctions that present a hurdle to large-scale European involvement in the country, or Iran’s hardliners blocking the president’s economic reforms. Yet, Rouhani’s own economic doctrine has significantly contributed to his administration’s failure to improve the lives of Iranians.
May 18, 2017 – Iranians are heading to the polls on May 19 for a presidential election that could have serious consequences for the country.
