Iran Archive

America’s current standoff with Iran over the direction of Tehran’s nuclear program is only one symptom of a larger problem. Concerns over climate change and the rising costs of ever-scarcer hydrocarbons are leading more countries to turn to atomic energy as a long-term source of cheap and emissions-free energy. While some of these nuclear newcomers will trust that international markets will be able to guarantee access to nuclear fuel, others will want to control the entire fuel cycle on their own territory. That means we may soon be faced with a situation where many countries will aspire to the technological […]

Who shall we bomb next? Pundits and commentators have begun to fall over themselves declaring the necessity of launching military campaigns against Syria and Iran — the former to prevent a humanitarian disaster and the latter to forestall the development of a nuclear weapon. The catalyst for this enthusiasm is the success of NATO’s aerial campaign in Libya, a war that apparently vindicated the long-standing promise of advanced, precision-guided airpower to cheaply and easily solve inconvenient political problems. Unfortunately, the rediscovered enthusiasm for intervention demonstrates only that the foreign policy punditocracy is committed to serially mislearning the lessons of airpower […]

Relations between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have grown increasingly strained in recent weeks, particularly after Erdogan, a Sunni Muslim, urged the Shiite leadership in Iraq to resolve sectarian tensions, which have escalated in the wake of the recent U.S. military withdrawal from the country. Maliki responded by telling Erdogan to stop interfering in Iraqi affairs, with the sharp exchange between Baghdad and Ankara taking an alarming turn when several rockets were fired at the Turkish embassy in Iraq last week. According to Henri Barkey, a Turkey expert at Lehigh University, the recent […]

With the possibility of a clash between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program looming on the horizon, one cannot help but wonder: Is it worth it for Iran, now grappling with increasingly onerous sanctions, to continue its pursuit of a nuclear capacity, albeit an ambiguous one? By all indications, Iran’s leaders believe so, based on their read of recent history. Since the end of the Cold War, according to this narrative, regimes that the U.S. dislikes for their internal behavior or external activity — and Iran certainly qualifies on both scores — run the risk of being […]

Conventional wisdom holds that it is in Iran’s near-term interest to calm tensions with the West, particularly the United States. But with those tensions now rising, it’s worth considering the dynamics at work in Tehran’s relationship with the rest of the world. In fact, the Iranian leadership’s incentives may run counter to our expectations, making a continuation or escalation of tensions more, not less, likely. Iran’s long-term national interest is best served by developing nuclear weapons, which would fundamentally alter the strategic balance in the Middle East. A nuclear capability would allow Tehran to bully its neighbors and pursue its […]

For all the attention Iran has received as of late, a significant development continues to be overlooked. Specifically, recent events have underscored that the three pillars of Iran’s long-standing deterrent-based military doctrine have become wasting assets in Tehran’s changing strategic environment. This factor is likely to be influential in shaping the regime’s continued debate over whether to cross the nuclear threshold. As Iranian policymakers lose confidence in their current deterrent capabilities, the strategic rationale for a nuclear arsenal will become increasingly apparent. Since the end of its war with Iraq in 1988, Iran’s military doctrine has relied heavily on three […]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s four-country Latin American tour last week was noticeable for its lack of achievements. The trip again underscored the gap between Tehran’s global ambitions and its constrained capabilities. Iran has yet to establish the means to challenge core U.S. economic, security and other interests in Latin America, and there is little likelihood of that changing in the future. In recent years, Iran has sought to expand its economic ties as well as diplomatic partnerships and influence in Latin America. Thus far, however, Iran has only managed to develop close ties with a few regional governments that share […]

Tokyo has said that it will support the U.S.-led sanctions on Iran, and will steadily reduce its orders of Iranian oil. World News Videos by NewsLook

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets Cuban President Raul Castro but a bomb attack that killed an Iranian nuclear scientist is not discussed during the meeting. World News Videos by NewsLook

Last week, in the Gulf of Oman, the Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyer USS Kidd seized an Iranian fishing dhow that had been hijacked and used as a mother ship by Somali pirates. In the course of the seizure, 13 Iranian hostages were freed, and 15 Somali pirates were taken into U.S. custody. The Iranian crew has now returned home after more than a month in captivity. In and of itself, the rescue was not extraordinary. Other vessels participating in the U.S.-led multilateral naval task force fighting Somalian piracy in the region — known as CTF-151 — carry out such rescues […]

Iran’s exchange rate is experiencing unusual volatility, with the U.S. dollar and the euro both rising by more than 25 percent against the Iranian rial over the past three weeks, despite attempts by Iran’s central bank to stabilize its currency. This volatility has coincided with the approval by the United States and the United Kingdom of a new round of sanctions against Iran targeting the Iranian central bank (ICB). The sanctions will deny access to U.S. markets to any firm that engages in financial transactions with the ICB. Since Iran’s commercial banks have already been targeted by similar sanctions, the […]

The standoff over Iran’s nuclear program has raised tensions in the Persian Gulf, even as factional battles in Tehran have divided the Iranian regime. This WPR special report examines Iran through articles published in the past year. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Not a subscriber? Purchase this document for Kindle or as a PDF from Scribd. Or subscribe now. The Nuclear Standoff Iran’s Slow but Steady Nuclear MarchBy Richard WeitzNovember 8, 2011 Iran and the Nuclear ParadoxBy Robert FarleyNovember 16, 2011 How to Stop Worrying and Live with the […]

Last year was a tough one in terms of global economics, humanitarian disasters and political leadership among the world’s great powers. But it was also the year of the glorious Arab Spring and hints of similar developments in Myanmar, Russia and Ethiopia. So while the year’s “fundamentals,” as the economists like to say, weren’t so good, it left us with plenty to be grateful for as globalization continues to awaken the desire of individuals for freedom the world over. Keeping all that in mind, here is my foreign policy wish list for 2012. A decisive election in the United States. […]