via LobeLog
by Derek Davison
As talks aimed at a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran continue, with principals from Iran and world powers meeting in Vienna this week, two recent analyses of the negotiations have compared the talks to a “Rubik’s Cube.”
A May 9 report from the International Crisis Group [...]
by Alireza Nader
via USIP
Iran has mixed feelings and conflicting interests in the Syrian crisis. Tehran has a strategic interest in opposing chemical weapons due to its own horrific experience during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. For years, President Saddam Hussein’s military used chemical weapons that killed thousands of Iranian soldiers. So [...]
by Alireza Nader
via USIP
Iranian politics are personal. Indeed, the theocrats are decidedly earthly in their rivalries. But the 2013 election is particularly telling. It may be settling a score dating back a quarter century between the revolution’s two most enduring politicos—Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former President [...]
by Matthew Duss
via USIP
On April 22, Canadian authorities arrested two men who allegedly planned to derail a U.S.-bound passenger train. Officials said al Qaeda elements in Iran gave “direction and guidance” to Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35. But police have not found evidence of Iranian state sponsorship. And Tehran [...]
Interview with Colin Kahl by Garrett Nada
via USIP
What steps would be necessary for Iran to build a nuclear weapon?
President Obama has estimated that it would take Iran “over a year or so” for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. But that device would likely be crude and too large to fit on [...]
By Kevan Harris
via USIP
What is the state of Iran’s economy in 2013 compared to a year ago?
Iran’s economy enters 2013 significantly worse than a year ago, particularly with higher inflation and unemployment than at the beginning of 2012. The rial also plunged from around 11,000 to the dollar at [...]
By Kevan Harris
via the United States Institute of Peace
What are the primary reasons that the Iranian rial has lost half of its value against the U.S. dollar in just one year? Iran’s currency was valued at about 10,000 rials to the dollar in the summer of 2011. It plummeted to more than [...]
Daniel Brumberg of the U.S. Institute of Peace and Barry Blechman of the Stimson Center follow up on their recent report about engaging Iran with a lengthy piece on the Middle East Channel of Foreign Policy‘s website.
“The problem,” they write, “is that democratic reform in Iran is a long-term proposition. As a [...]
The Iran-grand-bargainers, the Leveretts, have an interesting piece up challenging the notion that the Barack Obama administration was ever serious about engaging Iran. (Because I’m behind on my reading, I only picked up on it via the Progressive Realist.)
These are the same allegations that Dennis Ross, Obama’s top National Security Council official for [...]
At a release event for the U.S. Institute of Peace’s (USIP) Iran Primer: Power, Politics and U.S. Power – an exhaustive collection of new writings on the country — the opening address came from Dennis Ross, a top national security adviser to President Barack Obama on the Mid East.
Ross is an influential adviser to [...]
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