Iran Archive

July 14 was the first anniversary of the historic nuclear accord between Iran and the group of world powers known as the P5+1—the U.S., China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and Germany. For the first time, the deal put in place significant curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling international sanctions. The deal, and its subsequent implementation so far, have been hailed by a wide number of national security luminaries, nuclear nonproliferation analysts and the vast majority of the global community. But opposition to it, particularly among foreign policy hawks in the United States, Israel and […]

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Kurdish rebels from the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran clashed late last month along Iran’s mountainous border with Iraq. In an email interview, Denise Natali, a distinguished research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, discusses the relationship between the Iranian government and Iran’s Kurdish minority. WPR: How large is Iran’s Kurdish population, and how integrated are they into Iranian society? Denise Natali: Kurds are estimated to represent about 8 to 10 percent of the Iranian population, or about 6 million to 8 million people. They are not a monolithic community; […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the globe. Women’s groups in Iran recently reported that women were barred from attending a major volleyball tournament featuring the men’s Olympic team. In an email interview, Val Moghadam, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Northeastern University, discusses the state of women’s rights in Iran. WPR: What is the current status of women’s rights and gender equality in Iran, and how has the situation for women evolved since the Islamic Revolution? Val Moghadam: Women’s […]