After decades of political setbacks, Iran’s former Revolutionary Guards commander has returned to the center of power. Is he an incidental beneficiary of war, or have observers underestimated him all along?
Gulf states and their partners are increasingly looking beyond their most immediate interests of containing the war with Iran. While recent talks between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran have kept de-escalation on the agenda, a broader regional security framework and non-aggression pact has also emerged, envisioning a longer-lasting solution to regional conflicts. The talks have yet to produce a settlement, but they reflect a growing recognition that Gulf security cannot depend entirely on Washington. Iran will still be there, and its neighbors will have to find ways of living with it.
Recent elections for the Israeli Knesset and American Congress may make less of a difference in the Middle East than some people think. Elections are significant indicators of national political trends, but do not always translate into changes in national security strategies. That is likely the case now in both nations.
Bahrain’s interior minister said on Sunday that Tehran and its regional proxies are supporting militant groups that carry out terrorist actions on the Bahraini soil, Iranian and
A top advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei defended Iran’s costly involvement in regional conflicts and called for a long-term military presence in Syria and Iraq, Fars News Agency reported. “Our forces must stay in Iraq and Syria so as to defend Islamic unity. This is because if Iran is not present, no country can be the standard-bearer and guarantor of stability in the region,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister who holds more than a dozen official positions in the Islamic Republic.
A senior Iranian naval officer said on Monday that the country’s warplanes warned off two US-led coalition vessels during a military drill in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian media reported. “This morning and in the first hours of the drills, two warships of the coalition which had approached the drills zone to monitor the Iranian Navy units were identified by the Navy drones,” Spokesman of the drills Rear Admiral Seyed Mahmoud Moussavi was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, today left Tehran for Moscow to hold talks over the latest developments in Syria and the broader region, the Iranian media reported. Ansari and his accompanying team met with Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to the Middle East and African countries, to discuss ways of strengthening cooperation between the two countries in Syria. The two sides reportedly also talked about Yemen and other regional crises.
The deputy commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has said that the United States is no longer to “pull off a victory” in the Middle East and claimed that Tehran and its allies are driving the US forces out of the region.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s remarks that Washington will maintain a long-term military presence in Syria to continue to assist the Syrian Democratic Forces and prevent a potential ISIS reemergence have worried Tehran. An article in Fars News Agency, a mouthpiece of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), said that the “open-ended” deployment of US forces in Syria is aimed at “regime change” in the country.
The demonstrations that broke out across Iran in late December were the largest the country has seen since 2009, however their causes and participants were quite different from past protests. Barbara Slavin of the Atlantic Council and MEI Senior Fellow Alex Vatanka join host Paul Salem to discuss what we’ve learned about these protests and their implications for Iran’s leaders, the region, and U.S. policy.
In a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Palestinian Hamas, has praised Iranian support for the militant group, and particularly Tehran’s “unwavering and valuable” stance on the issue of Jerusalem. According to the Iranian media, Haniyeh denounced President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and emphasized in the letter that launching another intifada against Israel would be the best course of action at present.
Iran’s defense minister today denied a report that Tehran has accepted Western demands to hold negotiations on the country’s controversial missile program, according to Tasnim News Agency.
While Iran’s military involvement in regional conflicts and support for militant groups often make headlines, Tehran’s sophisticated soft power strategies aimed at promoting the Islamic Republic’s ideological and political goals in the region are largely overlooked. The establishment of Islamic Azad Universities in major Syrian and Iraqi cities and the expansion of its main branch in Lebanon is one example of how Tehran uses soft power tools to expand its sphere of influence across the region.
January 12, 2018 – The protests shaking provincial cities and towns in Iran since December 28, 2017 are a new and different phenomenon for the Islamic Republic. Young, politically voiceless people of modest means are apparently frustrated over the economic prospects and inequities they perceive. The Middle East Institute (MEI) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) were pleased to provide an inside view of the demonstrations and how they contrast with the “Green Movement” of 2009 or an Iranian “spring” of the like that spread through the Arab world in 2011.
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Alex Vatanka, Charles Lister, Marvin G. Weinbaum, and Eran Etzion provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including President Trump’s statement that he will no longer waive U.S. nuclear sanctions on Iran, new developments in northern Syria, Pakistan’s response to the withdrawal of U.S. security assistance, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to India.
Afghan authorities in western Herat Province have arrested a government official who allegedly spied for Iran and transferred sensitive government documents to the Iranian intelligence agencies, the Afghan media reported. Jilani Farhad, the spokesman for the government of Herat, told the Khama News Agency that Asadullah Reza-yi, who previously worked in neighboring Farah Province, was under surveillance for a long time before he was arrested. The suspect is transferred to Kabul for further investigation, he added.
The deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) has said that the Islamic Republic will not allow international inspectors to visit the country’s military sites, the Iranian media reported.
The oldest peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the study of the modern Middle East, MEI’s flagship journal covers politics, society, and culture in the region.
