Wars don’t just end. They get interpreted, reinterpreted, and turned into strategic doctrine. That is what happened after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, a conflict that saw the United States back Tehran’s Iraqi adversaries. The war taught Tehran three lessons it never unlearned: that Washington wants the Islamic Republic gone, that Iran stands essentially alone in the world, and that it cannot survive a direct, overt fight with the U.S. and Israel.
Within 48 hours this week, Iran filled six of the most important posts in its battered military and security establishment. Read together with the biographies and mandates behind them, the appointments show how Tehran is drawing lessons from successive wars and preparing for a prolonged period of insecurity, without proving it has abandoned negotiation.
In an August 9 interview with Axios, when asked about the endless swings of the Iran standoff, he shrugged it off as familiar territory. “It’ll work out in the end. It always does. It’s like a chess game.”
Since 1967, Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been a contested feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ultimate disposition of the settlements and ongoing activity related to their growth have repeatedly defied agreement in negotiations over a resolution to the conflict.
The Houthis are a political-military faction and Zaydi religious movement founded in northwestern Yemen in the 1980s. A key member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance with links to other militant organizations in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, the group has continued to pose a threat to Western interests on a global scale.
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a proposed multinational infrastructure initiative aimed at upgrading connectivity between the three regions through integrated trade, energy, and digital networks. Announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC is envisioned partially as a counterweight to China’s international infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
After a decade of post-Arab Spring isolation, Turkey’s leaders have recognized that their ambition to position the country as an agenda-setter on the world stage requires active engagement in all directions. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of executive authority has centralized foreign policy decision-making and tied it to his domestic political priorities, transforming the country’s revisionist approach to one shaped primarily by personal and pragmatic interests.
Podcasts
Middle East Focus
MEI’s flagship weekly podcast on US foreign policy and contemporary political and social issues in the Middle East.
MEI Senior Fellow Brian Katulis engages friends, colleagues, and policy experts in casual conversations on the most important happenings in the Middle East.
The Israeli prime minister’s visit to Moscow last week offered Israel and Russia an opportunity to ‘synchronize watches’ as a new phase in the Syrian war unfolds.
The visit was short and business-like. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Tel Aviv in the morning and was back in Jerusalem that same evening. But his meeting with President Vladimir Putin, their fourth since the Russian intervention in September 2015, was long enough to reaffirm the principles that have enabled both Russia and Israel to protect their core interests in Syria.
An Indian Diplomatic Initiative to Promote West Asian Security
This essay explores the rationale, modalities and prospects for a constructive diplomatic by China and India — two rising powers, both with significant equities in the region and no historical baggage — to help break this cycle.
U.N. Investigator: Iran’s Human Rights Situation Hasn’t Improved under Rouhani
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has not fulfilled his pledge to improve the country’s human rights situation and guarantee Iranians’ civil liberties, says Asma Jahangir, the U.N. special rapporteur for Iran. In an exclusive interview with the BBC Persian on Monday, the U.N.
Iranian Lawmaker: Washington’s “Safe Zone” Plan Won’t Change Balance of Power in Syria
A senior Iranian lawmaker says the Trump administration and its allies will not be able to establish safe zones in Syria, and that the deployment of American troops to Syria will also not change the trajectory of war in the Arab country, the Iranian Parliament’s official website reports.
I.R.G.C.-Linked Media Delegation Visits Beirut to Discuss Regional Issues with Hezbollah Leaders
A senior delegation of Iran’s Tasnim News Agency has held meetings with a number of high-ranking officials of the Lebanese Hezbollah in Beirut, the Iranian media reports.
Diplomatic Feud Between Turkey and E.U. Grows | Monday Briefing
In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts W. Robert Pearson, Gerald Feierstein, Yousef Munayyer, and Alex Vatanka provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the simmering diplomatic feud between Turkey and the Netherlands, the Chinese offer to act as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the congressional debate whether to supply aid to the Palestinian Authority, and the growing French business footprint in Iran.
Iran Arrests Opposition Leader’s Son in New Wave of Crackdown
Authorities in Iran have handed a six-month jail term to a son of Mehdi Karroubi, a former Iranian opposition leader and presidential candidate who has been held under house arrest in Iran since February 2011, Iranian reformist website Kaleme reported today. A Revolutionary Court has found Hossein Karroubi guilty of “propagating against the regime” after he published his father’s open letter to President Hassan Rouhani, in which he had blasted the “despotic regime” for illegally putting him under house arrest and called for a public trial.
Khamenei’s Symbolic Clemency as Authorities Intensify Suppression of Activists
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has approved a set of terms and conditions for pardoning or commuting prison sentences of a number of Iranian convicts, Khamenei’s official website reported today. Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani had asked the Supreme Leader to review and authorize the conditions under which the Judiciary could grant clemency to certain convicts on the occasions of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad’s daughter and the upcoming Iranian New Year – which begins on March 21.
Iran-Backed Militia Groups Continue to Play Key role in West Mosul Operations
Ali al-Hussaini, a spokesman of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces), has claimed that PMF forces have made significant territorial gains in western Mosul and the operation to liberate the strategic city of Tal Afar will begin soon.
While Iraqi forces are fighting to retake the western half of Mosul from Islamic State fighters, internal divisions regarding the future of Iraq’s political process are escalating ahead of provincial elections scheduled for September, especially within the country’s largest Shiite political bloc, the Shiite National Alliance.
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.
