Iran Archive

Early Sunday morning, the war in Syria took a new turn when forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and large numbers of Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon launched a major offensive to retake the Syrian town of Qusair. The ferocious battle, which continues to rage on, goes a long way in explaining some of the strategy and tactics currently dominating the conflict. In times of peace, the western city Qusair was not a particularly large or important one. The town’s population, which has fluctuated with the civil war, has ranged between 30,000 and 40,000. In recent weeks, however, the significance of […]

The Syrian civil war has become one of the most complex and tragic conflicts of the 21st century. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that 80,000 have died since 2011. The United Nations believes that 1.5 million Syrians are refugees, and that number could increase dramatically in coming months. Day by day, Syria is losing an entire generation, one that will be scarred by violence and unprepared to be productive citizens someday. Yet the conflict continues because those who could stop it—the Assad regime and its supporters, the various rebel movements and the external nations supporting one side or […]

At their White House summit last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Barack Obama reaffirmed the two countries’ “model partnership” as they jointly called for greater international efforts to end the Syrian War. Thus far, the Arab Spring has had an overall positive effect on the Turkey-U.S. relationship. Before 2011, the Turkish-U.S. policy discourse focused on their divisions over Iraq, Iran and other regional security issues. But since the Arab Spring, Ankara and Washington have been preoccupied with harmonizing their policies toward the Arab world. This has become increasingly difficult with regard to Syria. Meanwhile, the […]

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid visited Tehran last weekend to attend the 17th meeting of the India-Iran Joint Commission. Though the most surprising outcome of the visit was the agreement on a common diplomatic initiative for resolving the Syrian crisis, a number of other agreements, including for the expansion of the strategically important Chabahar port on the Arabian Sea, signal a closer alignment on a more critical geopolitical interest that the two sides share: ensuring long-term stability in Afghanistan. Clearly the scheduled U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan is driving a new diplomatic engagement between India and Iran. Contrast this […]

As the immediate sense of crisis fades on the Korean Peninsula, the longer-term cycle of provocation and response remains in place. North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile capabilities continue to grow, and South Korea is feeling the pressure to respond by building its own capabilities. Meanwhile, there are signs that China’s resolve to back the North may be wavering. And while the U.S. response to North Korea seems to have worked in the short run, Washington needs to stay prepared for all contingencies. North Korea’s Threat North Korea Gambles on Strategic AssumptionsBy Nikolas GvosdevApril 5, 2013 Even If It Fails, […]