Research & Commentary Results

With Afghanistan’s western Farah Province on the verge of falling to the Taliban, Afghan officials and tribal leaders in the province accuse neighboring Iran and Pakistan of aiding the insurgents for political and economic ends.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Nathan Stock, Alex Vatanka, Ruba Husari, and Gonul Tol provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the fallout from President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Iran’s diplomatic efforts with Europe to keep the nuclear deal alive, how Iran’s other trading partners are responding to U.S. warnings of sanctions, and Britain’s efforts to cultivate closer ties with Turkey.

Key points

Alex Vatanka and Gerald Feierstein join host Paul Salem to discuss reactions in the region and around the world to Trump’s announcement that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and restore sanctions on Iran.

As Iraqis are heading to the polls on Saturday to vote in the country’s parliamentary elections, the Fateh Alliance, a coalition dominated by Iranian-backed militia groups, is confident that it will win sufficient parliamentary seats to choose the country’s next prime minister. Abu Ala al-Wa’eli, the commander of Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, a militia unit within the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) and part of the Fateh Alliance, said the alliance has not nominated anyone to become the next prime minister but will play the kingmaker in the post-election government formation process.

In this special briefing, MEI experts Bilal Y. Saab, Alex Vatanka, Randa Slim, Ahmad Majidyar, Gerald Feierstein, Gonul Tol, and Marvin G. Weinbaum discuss President Trump’s announcement that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and its ramifications for the region.

Iran’s Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (2016-21) identifies the energy sector as a key source of revenue and driver of economic growth.[1] The plan envisages increasing oil output by 2 million barrels per day (bpd) to 4.8 million bpd.[2] Achieving this ambitious target will require substantial foreign investment, technology, and expertise.

In recent weeks, mass demonstrations in Gaza, near the Israel-Gaza fence, have resulted in large numbers of casualties, reportedly 44 dead and several thousand wounded.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Alex Vatanka, Randa Slim, and Randa Slim provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including President Trump’s decision on whether to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, what this weekend’s election results in Lebanon indicate about Hezbollah’s standing in the country, and expectations for the outcome of Iraq’s elections on May 12.

In contrast to bellicose statements from Tehran in recent days, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said today that Tehran would remain in the 2015 nuclear accord, even if the Trump administration abandoned it. But he said Tehran would stick to the deal only if other signatories of the deal assure Tehran that the Islamic Republic will continue to benefit from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The commander of Khatam al-Anbia Construction Base, the main engineering arm of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), has said that the conglomerate will complete 40 mega-projects in the current Iranian year, which began on March 21.

On an official visit to Damascus this week, the chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy committee said that the Islamic Republic would retaliate against Israel for last month’s strikes on an air Syrian military base that killed several Iranian nationals. “We will respond to any aggression on Iran at the appropriate time and place,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi said at a news conference in the Syrian capital on Tuesday. The senior Iranian lawmaker made the remarks after meeting with President Bashar al-Assad and top Syrian officials and parliamentarians.

With Iraq’s May 12 parliamentary elections nearing, the coalition of Iranian-supported militia groups called Fateh Alliance is confident that it can translate its military gains into a political victory by either winning the premiership or playing kingmaker in the post-election government formation process, according to Tasnim News Agency, an outlet affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

The Moroccan government announced yesterday that it has severed its diplomatic relations with Iran over Tehran’s support for the Polisario Front, a separatist movement in Western Sahara,

The commander of the Fatemiyoun Division, an all-Afghan militia unit fighting under the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ leadership in Syria, has rejected media reports that missiles hit its military base near Syria’s northwest over the weekend. “The military base of this Division is near the city of Aleppo. No combatants from this force have been martyred by an attack as reported in the media,” Tasnim News Agency, a Revolutionary Guards mouthpiece, quoted the Afghan Shiite commander as saying in an exclusive interview, without disclosing his name.