After nearly four months of war, the US and Iran have signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding declaring the conflict over, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and beginning talks toward a final deal. Alan Eyre, MEI Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow and a core member of the 2015 JCPOA negotiating team, joins host Alistair Taylor to unpack the deal’s implications for both countries, its ripple effects across the region, and what a lasting settlement would take.
A Strategic Conundrum: Pakistan’s Transit Corridor to Iran as Lifeline or Liability
The US-Iran standoff over the Strait of Hormuz — disruptive to global trade and energy flows, and devastating for debt-burdened economies — has handed Pakistan an unexpected geoeconomic opportunity, one that may persist even if the framework agreement announced on June 14 results in a lasting peace and permanent reopening of the strait. But seizing it will have interlocking consequences for Islamabad’s ties with Tehran, Washington, and the Gulf states.
Communication, Media, and Popular Culture in Post-revolutionary Iran
In the news media and the prevailing political discourse, Iran is often portrayed as a closed society. Characterizations of Iran as a theocratic state, fundamentalist society, and a rogue nation depict Iran as an “Islamic” totalitarian state devoid of any freedom and trappings of “civil society.” At the same time, cinéphiles the world over applaud the work of Iranian filmmakers. One can cite numerous other examples of robust cultural activities in Iran.
Bilateral relations between Turkey and Iran have been marked by relative peace and stability for the past four centuries. Since the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923 and the creation of an absolutist monarchy in Iran in 1925, the ruling regimes of both countries have sought to consolidate their domestic power and to pursue an independent foreign policy. Neither Turkey nor Iran has viewed one another as an immediate threat to the attainment of these vital objectives.
Iranian society has changed dramatically over the past 30 years, and bears little resemblance either to the expectations of or the picture painted by the leadership of the Islamic Republic. Indeed, as much as the ruling clerics like to project self-confidence and the ability to predict the future, they could not have envisaged a society with these characteristics. While many of these surprising developments have occurred because of the policies of the Islamic Republic, others have occurred despite or regardless of them.
The Dichotomist Antagonist Posture in the Persian Gulf
Since the end of “Pax Britannica,” a zero-sum approach to Persian Gulf security has predominated. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s rhetoric and ideology in favor of “exporting the Revolution” to the Sunni Arab world coupled with the strong hostility of the Gulf Arab regimes toward the Islamic Republic of Iran reinforced a dichotomist mindset with respect to regional security. Iraq’s invasion of Iran and the taking of US diplomats as hostages by Iran (which compounded the severity of the fracture in US-Iran relations) exacerbated this trend.
In the fall of 2007, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad welcomed President Vladimir Putin on the first state visit by a Russian leader since Joseph Stalin came to Iran to attend the Tehran Summit in 1943 along with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The Iranian press was in no doubt as to the significance of the visit, which for many illustrated not only Iran’s importance but its return to the world stage as a power with which to be reckoned.
Some three decades into the life of the Islamic Republic, the Iranian regime has yet to devise and implement a coherent national security policy or even a set of guidelines on which its regional and international security policies are based. In relation to the Persian Gulf region and the country’s immediate neighbors, this has resulted in the articulation of regional foreign and security policies that at times have seemed fluid and changeable.
One of the strange features of 20th century Iranian leaders has been a tendency to perceive themselves, their government, and Iran as serious challengers to the present world order. Given the fact that the present world order is very much a Western dominated system, the Iranian leaders’ historic “crusade” has been broadly anti-Western. Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi as well as his successors have perceived their respective regime as offering the world a different system of leadership — one that is far superior to that of the West in many respects.
Potentials and Challenges in the Iranian Oil and Gas Industry
Thirty years after the revolution, Iran’s hydrocarbon industry is facing new opportunities and challenges. This essay attempts to evaluate the future of Iran’s oil and gas sector in view of changing circumstances in the oil and gas industry and the barriers to Iran taking full advantage of its potentials.
Iran's Foreign Policy and the Iran-Pakistan-India Gas Pipeline
Shortly after the revolution in 1979, Iran somewhat irrationally distanced itself from the international community. Partly because of revolutionary fervor, Iran initially made itself vulnerable. The American hostage crisis and the eight-year war with Iraq exposed Iran to economic hardship and international isolation.
European governments initially reacted to Iran’s Islamic revolution by a careful testing of the ground with the new regime. But relations deteriorated quickly, as Iran accused some European countries of siding with Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War and Iranian agents killed Iranian opposition figures in European capitals.
Almost immediately after the triumph of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini and the new Iranian leadership turned against Saudi Arabia and its ruling family.
When Iran’s 1979 revolution took place, many Iranians predicted that relations between Iran and France would improve in an unprecedented way. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, spent the last four months of his 14-year in exile in France. The revolutionaries in Tehran lauded French leaders for being hospitable toward their spiritual leader. They had no hatred of France, which lacked colonialist aspirations regarding Iran.
The Spectrum of Perceptions in Iran's Nuclear Issue
The relationship between Iran and the West has been marked by mutual mistrust and confrontation for the past 30 years. Iran’s nuclear standoff with Western countries is currently regarded as the main symbol of that confrontational relationship. Iran insists that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful, while Western countries are suspicious of Tehran’s intentions. There are polarized and incompatible views about this complicated and multidimensional issue. The main source of incompatibility is that this issue is seen from different perspectives.
As one of the most important events of the past three decades in the Middle East, the Islamic Revolution not only has sustained itself, but the Islamic Republic which it spawned celebrated its 30th anniversary in February 2009.
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