Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states of the Caspian and Russia are still deeply intertwined in each other’s economies, security, and cultures. Moscow has continued to wield considerable military, political, and economic influence in the region.
With the election of former IRGC commander Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s “Second Phase of the Revolution” is well under way in two of the three branches of government in the Islamic Republic. All eyes have now turned to the presidency, with elections less than one year away.
Late on June 25, the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service carried out an operation against Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed militia, in the suburbs of Baghdad, detaining militiamen, confiscating mobile Katyusha rocket launchers, and accusing the group of plotting another round of rocket attacks targeting the Green Zone and Baghdad International Airport.
With his recent comments to the Parliament Khan has succeeded in shooting himself and Pakistan in the foot.
It is time to end the 41 years of futile hostilities between Iran and the United States of America.
Officials in Tehran have a lot to worry about. But they are particularly irked at the speed by which Asian states have dropped Iran as a trading partner. Iran had hoped that the East would save the country’s economy from the barrage of sanctions enacted by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. In early 2018, at a time when Trump and his team were about to unveil the most punishing sanctions regime ever imposed on a country, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei explicitly urged Tehran to look east for trading partners.
Despite strong religious and cultural ties and a long shared border, Iran has a somewhat complicated relationship with Afghanistan. Since the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan some four decades ago, Iran’s attempts to preserve its interests in conflict-ridden Afghanistan have not received much attention from the outside world, but it remains one of the most important neighboring countries for Tehran’s foreign policy.
The uncertainty about the withdrawal timetable has sowed confusion among U.S. partners in Afghanistan and prompted the Taliban to accuse the U.S. of not living up to the terms of their agreement.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, music and dance have become increasingly common in Iran’s hospitals and on its streets. Long disallowed in public after the Islamic revolution of 1979, they have become both a source of support for Iranians during difficult times and a way of resisting the regime.
The framers of the 2020-21 budget were confronted with a long list of conflicting objectives.
Mainly at issue for the country is the difficult choice of whether to prioritize saving lives or saving the economy for a Pakistan that can ill afford to ignore either.
Frantic efforts are being made to clear the way for intra-Afghan talks, the logical next step forward in the implementation of the February U.S.-Taliban deal.
The U.S.-Iraq Strategic Dialogue that will be launched this week provides an opportunity for the two sides to put their relations, as Iraqi President Dr. Barham Salih said last April, “in the right context.”
The Taliban’s military and diplomatic strategies are intended to work in tandem, one leveraging the other. Each has as its ultimate goal the Taliban’s recovery of an emirate lost in 2001.
The impact of COVID-19 on Iran-linked forces in Syria has provided Russia with an opportunity to expand its influence through its proxy forces, particularly in eastern Syria, as Iranian and pro-Iranian forces redeploy elsewhere in the country.