Iran Archive

At first sight, ideology readily suggests itself as the main explanation for Turkey’s redefinition of its relations with Israel. After all, the gradual rift and impending breakdown of strategic relations between the two countries began once the moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) rose to power in Turkey. Upon closer examination, however, other factors are more fundamental in accounting for the split. Simply put, Turkey no longer needs Israel. This change is related less to the Turkish government’s Islamic ideology and more to geopolitical trends and a concomitant shift in the global and regional balance of power. While ideology […]

Predictions of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fall from power have been frequent among Western observers. On this view, events involving two American hikers jailed in Tehran are seen as the latest display of Ahmadinejad’s political impotence in the face of clerical power. But, despite the predictions, and as a few observers outside Iran ha ve realized, Ahmadinejad’s political demise is far from imminent. The president and his appointees have been portrayed as diminished and defeated, and as about to resign or be sacrificed as scapegoats. Some analysts have speculated Ahmadinejad will be arrested on charges of treason for imprudently opposing […]

In his WPR column yesterday, Robert Farley discussed Israel’s strategic options in light of damaged and possibly doomed ties with Turkey and Egypt. But it’s worth noting that an Israel in conflict with two of the United States’ closest regional allies also has significant impact on the United States’ strategic calculus in the Middle East. When two friends get into a dispute that not only resists resolution but actually deepens, one eventually begins to feel pressure to move from trying to mediate to choosing sides. And given the realities of U.S. domestic politics, it’s only a matter of time before […]

It wasn’t very long ago when American interest in the Middle East focused with piercing intensity on the minutest of developments in Iraq. Over time, however, the gradual drawdown of U.S. forces, the uprisings in the Middle East and public exhaustion with the draining American misadventure in Mesopotamia conspired to take Baghdad out of the headlines. That is about to change. The coming months will bring Iraq back to the foreground. A number of crucial events and opposing forces are now converging, and they will determine whether Iraq, the country Americans spent so much blood and treasure to turn into […]

Over the past two weeks, Israel has seen two critical strategic relationships with key regional allies nearly collapse. In Cairo, protesters stormed the Israeli Embassy, causing property damage but no injuries. This came on the heels of a border incident in Sinai, in which Israeli soldiers in pursuit of Palestinian militants accidentally killed several Egyptian soldiers. The Israeli government has taken steps to reduce tensions with Egypt, but the ability of the latter’s transitional military government to mend fences is unclear. As for the willingness of any new Egyptian government to spend political capital on maintaining a good relationship with […]

The slow-burning war pitting militarized Kurdish groups in Iraq against the governments of Turkey and Iran has escalated since mid-August. Most notably, Turkish fighter jets have flown multiple bombing runs on bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The Turkish bombing campaign, occurring inside northern Iraq, is reportedly being conducted in retaliation for a series of PKK attacks that have left more than two dozen Turkish soldiers dead since the beginning of the summer. Meanwhile, a PKK offshoot known as the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) is engaged in ongoing clashes with Iranian forces, with Iranian officials […]

Eight years after Moammar Gadhafi gave up his mail-order nuclear weapons program and chemical munitions in exchange for détente with the West, he has been chased from power by a ragtag rebel army backed by Western airpower. Chances are that Gadhafi regrets his decision to forgo his WMD programs. If he had been armed with nuclear or chemical weapons, NATO might not have intervened when he threatened to massacre his own people. While Gadhafi’s fall is good news, the end of the eccentric colonel’s dictatorship now heightens the challenge of getting the Irans and North Koreas of the world to […]

Iran’s offer this week to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors “full supervision” of its nuclear activities appeared, initially at least, to represent a softening of what for the past two years has been the country’s obstructionist posture toward the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency. However, according to James M. Acton, a senior associate with the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the offer was actually made as part of a strategy designed to prevent the IAEA from issuing a resolution condemning Iran’s failure to address questions about potentially militarized aspects of its nuclear program. “The fundamental […]

Ending a months-long dispute over oil payments, Iran has now resumed oil shipments to India, with Turkey stepping in as a key facilitator to resolve the impasse. Turkey’s Halkbank is currently routing Indian oil payments to Iran that had been blocked by U.S. sanctions; according to reports, more than 80 percent of the $5 billion in accumulated arrears have been cleared. The tripartite arrangement, which comes amid regional tensions over Syria’s future, indicates that India and its overall energy interests are emerging as a key variable in the strategic calculus of Middle Eastern capitals. Previously characterized mainly by drift, the […]