October 14, 2020

The fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan comes at a particularly bad time for Iran. At home, it faces an extremely difficult economic situation thanks to U.S. sanctions. Abroad, it is involved in multiple unfinished geopolitical adventures in the Arab world—from Iraq to Syria and beyond—in which it has invested considerably in recent years.

September 14, 2020

Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) took a different path than the rest of the financial world. As markets around the globe plunged, the TSE soared to new heights. In the first four months of the Iranian fiscal year (March 20-July 21), the value of trades increased by 625 percent as compared with the corresponding period a year earlier, and the market hit a record high in early August. In this bull market, even loss-making companies among the roughly 1,000 firms registered on the exchange saw their share prices rise. The TSE lists 500,000 active traders and a total of 12 million registered to buy and sell stocks — equal to around one-seventh of Iran’s 82 million people.

March 31, 2020

​Covid-19 is undoubtedly the biggest health crisis in our lifetime. Pundits around the world, but also a long list of policymakers from Washington to Abu Dhabi to Beijing, wonder about the long-term implications of this deadly pandemic. While there is plenty of speculation about how this crisis might re-balance global power dynamics, other foreign policy implications are more immediately tangible.

May 06, 2020

Iran’s once promising reformist movement is in a death spiral. It is not because the idea of reform has lost its appeal. On the contrary, the average Iranian today is as eager to see political change as ever. But they have no reason to believe gradual reform is possible. This pessimism is not only grounded in the reform movement’s long track record of failing to make a difference, but it is also exacerbated by the current diabolical condition of the movement’s leadership. 

March 17, 2020

The outbreak of a Russian-Saudi oil price war earlier this month might offer some comfort to Iran, a country which has in recent years become unnerved by the increasingly close ties between Moscow and Riyadh. However, it is premature to see an Iranian geopolitical win emerging from the Russian-Saudi spat, and history should give Tehran plenty of reservations about Moscow’s ability to deliver on its economic promises to Iran. 

January 31, 2020

Iran and the U.S. were on a collision course as soon as President Donald Trump arrived at the White House in January 2017. The U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and re-imposed crippling sanctions on Tehran. The Iranians, desperate to regain some leverage and break the back of the sanction regime, countered from May 2019 on with a series of actions, including hit-and-run attacks on vessels in and around the Persian Gulf, shooting down a U.S. drone in June, and daring and unprecedented missile attacks... 

In an Oct. 2 speech to the top commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, asked them to be ready for “big events.” In characteristically vague language, Khamenei was issuing a warning to his domestic opponents, President Hassan Rouhani, and the country’s foreign foes. His choice of speaking to the IRGC bosses was anything but coincidental.

September 05, 2019

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s visit to the G-7 summit in France late last month was a surprise to many in the West. Some even viewed it as a good omen. But for the Iranian leadership, Zarif’s quick trip to Biarritz was always a long shot and with little chance to turn the tide in the U.S.-Iranian standoff. Such doubts were confirmed in the days that followed. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration still refuses to lift sanctions on Iranian oil, and Tehran will not engage in direct talks with Washington until some unequivocal relief from sanctions is first provided by the U.S. side. Feel-good symbolism aside, Zarif departed Biarritz empty-handed. His next trip held more promise, anyway. Before he even arrived in Beijing, Zarif had already put pen to paper for China’s prominent Global Times.

June 25, 2019

In late May, Saudi Arabia hosted three separate summit meetings in Mecca, in the hope of securing the region’s unequivocal condemnation of Iranian activities in the Middle East. But whether at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League, or the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Saudis, to their disappointment, found that not everyone shared their frame of mind about Iran.

March 19, 2019

Amid escalating tensions between the Trump administration and Tehran, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif declared at the annual Munich Security Conference that the “risk of war” between Iran and Israel was “great.” Zarif’s warning came only days after the Warsaw Summit, which sought to establish a broad-coalition to support President Donald Trump’s Middle East policies, including on Iran.

June 28, 2018

Since its 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has incited violent, radical, and often sectarian nonstate groups across the Middle East to serve as proxies in its military campaigns to influence regional and international politics. This “proxy model” has become increasingly salient since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and more recently in Iraq and Syria, and is now Iran’s primary tool for advancing its regional intersts. The U.S. and the West in general have largely paid attention only to radical Sunni groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. With a few exceptions, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, nonstate Shi‘i militant groups have generally avoided the same intense Western scrutiny. This study compares and contrasts regional conflicts that have been shaped by Iranian proxies and Iran’s successful—and unsuccessful—attempts to recruit to its militant groups. It also identifies the key forces that have shaped Iran’s ideological and operational sponsorship of nonstate militant groups, both Sunni and Shi‘i, as well as its motivations and preferred modus operandi.

June 21, 2018

As international companies leave Iran under U.S. pressure, the Iranian government is scrambling to salvage as much foreign investment as possible. The top leadership in Tehran believes the solution is to engage with Russia, China, and the “east” to replace the West’s hesitant commitment to the Iranian market. But this eastward approach is a pipe dream, and there is plenty of history to prove it.

February 20, 2018

As the Islamic Republic enters its fortieth year in power, the Trump administration needs to pay heed to the perils of hubris in its policy towards Iran. There is no silver bullet for gaining the upper hand with Iran, and American presidents have a poor track record in trying. While the reasons for failure are unique to each president, there has been a pattern of overestimating the utility of using threats of force to influence Iranian behavior, and underestimating Iran’s will and capacity to resist.

Jimmy Carter tried to end the Iran hostage crisis shortly after the Iranian revolution in 1979 with a daring and misguided rescue attempt, leading to a failed mission and a presidential electoral defeat in 1980. Under Ronald Reagan’s watch the Iran-Contra affair cast a pall over what at the time was perceived to be his administration’s overall effective foreign-policy record. Bill Clinton imposed the most severe sanctions on Iran in the hope to extract concessions, only to be left disappointed.

November 29, 2017

Today, the latest round of UN-brokered Syria peace talks begins in Geneva, with the goal of bringing President Bashar al-Assad and various armed opposition factions to a political settlement that could put an end to half a decade of civil war in the country. The Geneva talks come one week after another set of Syria talks, this time in Sochi. The November 22 gathering, which included some of the conflict’s key remaining players—Iran, Turkey, and Russia—was supposed to be a turning point in the issue of Syria’s future. At least that had been Tehran’s hope. Instead, the talks highlighted emerging fissures between Assad’s two main foreign backers, Iran and Russia, and even divisions within Iran between the civilian government of President Hassan Rouhani and the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

November 09, 2017

Due to proximity and historical ties, no other country is as well placed as Iran to play a dominant role in Afghan society, as Middle East Institute senior fellow Alex Vatanka shows in his new paper, "Iran's Bottom Line in Afghanistan."

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However, Tehran is focused on short-term tactical gains at the expense of a sustainable, holistic strategy, reflected in its use of Shia Afghans as a proxy elsewhere in the region, and it is generating concern in Kabul about rising sectarian tensions in Afghanistan.

November 01, 2017

In his book The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump wrote that in order to seal a deal, he sometimes has to “be the bad guy.” If Trump has a strategy when it comes to Iran, he’s certainly adhering to that playbook. On Friday, he announced that the United States would not certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement, saying that to do so would be to “continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror, and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakthrough.”

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If Trump’s threats are a way to extract additional concessions, he is soon going to learn that every bad cop needs a good cop. When it comes to Iran, Trump will find that Europe is his best bet to offer carrots as he wields sticks. Europe’s growing footprint in the Iranian economy is the best available leverage to change Iran’s behavior. Despite the swagger of the regime in Tehran, the state of the economy remains its Achilles’s heel, and the Iranians are loath to see European businesses abandon them again. The key for the Trump administration will be persuading Europeans that it’s in their own interest to pressure Iran.

October 05, 2017

Following Russia’s decision in September 2015 to intervene militarily in the Syrian war, speculation has been rife in Washington that President Vladimir Putin’s ultimate end-goal is to eclipse America’s long-held dominance in the Middle East. To that end:

• Moscow needs regional allies that can abet its ambitions.

• At least in American eyes, no other state can be more useful to Russian machinations than the ardently anti-American Islamic Republic of Iran.

• Given the fluid state of geopolitics in the Middle East—defined by ongoing conflicts in a number of theaters and uncertainty among US partners and allies about Washington’s commitment to the region—the question of Iran as a conduit for Russian ascendency is both timely and proper.

That said, Iran’s checkered history with the Russian Federation since 1991 informs that while Tehran and Moscow have common interests at times, the path toward a possible strategic partnership is bound to be long and arduous at best.

September 04, 2017

When Turkey welcomed Iranian Chief of General Staff Mohammad Bagheri to Ankara in mid-August, it was the first time since the Iranian revolution of 1979 that an Iranian official of his position had traveled abroad. In an equally surprising move, Ankara announced in August that it was preparing to host the Russian military chief, Valery Gerasimov, to discuss regional security. The vigor of Turkey’s outreach to Iran and Russia, two historic rivals, ought to raise eyebrows in President Donald Trump’s White House. It not only signals an important foreign policy shift, but is an indicator that Ankara has given up on Washington.

August 18, 2017

President Donald Trump likes a good war of words with foreign leaders. And besides the North Koreans, the leadership in Iran makes a first-rate target for him. After all, one of his signature campaign pledges was to undo the 2015 nuclear deal that Barack Obama’s administration signed with Tehran and five world powers.

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Since Trump’s earliest days in office, he has kept alive the threat that he might unilaterally withdraw the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a multilateral agreement unanimously endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. This represents a challenge to Trump’s counterpart in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani, who made the deal his administration’s central accomplishment and is now banking that the U.S. president will stick to it despite Trump’s rhetoric.

August 14, 2017

Over the last few months, Iraq’s Shiite political groups have intensified their fight for influence in Baghdad in preparation for the parliamentary elections next year. Much to the displeasure of Iran, which has supported a number of these groups, some Iraqi Shiites have been publicly distancing themselves from their patron because posturing as independent forces, free from the tutelage of foreign powers, will win them points with Iraqi voters. 

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Tehran is particularly concerned that after the Islamic State (ISIS) is finally driven out of Iraq, the political dialogue that will ensue among the country’s various political factions, as well as between Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups, about power-sharing will shut Iran out, and in turn jeopardize its long-term interests for regional control. There is now a debate in Tehran over whether the trend in Baghdad is simply a tempest in a teapot or whether Tehran will have to learn to live with a resurgent Iraqi Shiite nationalism.

June 21, 2017

In a remarkable speech at an iftar dinner in Tehran, Hassan Rouhani gave a strong defense of his government’s policies. He called for “dialogue” among factions in Tehran and for Iran to become a member of the global community and to open the door to foreign investors for the sake of creating jobs.

At the same event, Khamenei told his supporters to be watchful about those looking to make compromise with the “enemies” (a jab at Rouhani) and said the “revolutionaries” have a license to act whenever they see that conditions call for it.

There are no other examples of Rouhani and Khamenei facing off like this in a public and at a televised event. It was clear that Khamenei wanted to make it clear he has serious reservations about the policy preferences of the Rouhani government. The license (which Khamenei called “Armed with Authority”) is a direct attempt to impose restrictions on the Rouhani government’s ability to set the political agenda. 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s re-election is in doubt thanks to an unassuming cleric who only recently entered the public spotlight. On April 9, Ebrahim Raisi, a longtime behind-the-scenes operative of the Islamic Republic closely associated with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared his candidacy in Iran’s May 19 presidential election. 

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Though he is the most likely consensus candidate of Iran’s array of “principlists,” the umbrella term for the country’s roughly dozen smaller hard-line political parties, he is neither charismatic nor widely recognized by the Iranian public, and unless there is mass vote-rigging, his chances of unseating Rouhani are next to nothing. But Rouhani’s camp has reason to fear that Khamenei’s inner circle will resort to just such tactics. That would set the stage for a potentially explosive showdown over the future of the country.

April 01, 2017

While the worst violence of Syria’s six-year-long war may be over, a credible settlement is still far off. The Trump administration has boosted the U.S. military presence in Syria. While this enhances Washington’s leverage, it will not alone assure long-term U.S. interests: The destruction of the Islamic State, a cessation of Syria’s destabilizing refugee flow, and an end to Syria’s transformation into a logistical hub for expanding Iranian and perhaps Russian influence.

To achieve these aims, Washington needs a more holistic approach toward external powers now involved in the Syrian conflict. During the campaign, Trump suggested working with Russia to fight the Islamic State; his secretary of defense seems disinclined to follow through on that proposal. But much of U.S. policy will hinge on the influence of other regional players, Iran and Turkey. Both have vested interests in Syria that do not align well with those of the United States, and the Trump administration will have to manage these unreliable actors carefully as the conflict continues.

March 26, 2017

History will probably conclude that President Barack Obama took a gamble on the Islamic Republic of Iran and lost. “Yes, we can” was supposed to be a powerful antidote to all sorts of obstinate policy challenges. In the realm of foreign policy, the cold war between the United States and the Islamist ruling class in Tehran had perilously lingered since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. In the interim, thanks to the 2002 discovery of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Iranian question had been elevated to a US national security priority. 

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Obama’s pitch was simple: engaging with Tehran was the only way forward. And yet, in all of his laudable efforts, Obama failed to foresee another equally simple proposition: that the top echelons of power in Tehran had little desire to sincerely engage with Washington. Anti-Americanism was a pillar of the Islamic Republic’s ideology. Tehran wanted to keep it that way.

January 25, 2017

The death of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on January 8 marks a major turning point for Iran. For nearly 40 years, his undisguised hunger for power combined with his knack for deal making had made him the most proven kingmaker of the Islamic Republic.

In fact, without Rafsanjani, Iran’s two most important living political personalities—Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani—might never have risen through the ranks. For his part, Rouhani, stayed loyal to Rafsanjani until the very end. Khamenei, however, parted ways with Rafsanjani many years ago, shortly after he became Supreme Leader.

The two former friends became the severest of rivals, spearheading different portions of the nezam (political order) in the quest for preeminence. Theirs was not really an ideological difference, although Rafsanjani was thought of as a moderate and Khamenei as a hardliner. Rather, their dispute was always about power.

January 18, 2017

On January 23, Washington quickly rejected newsthat US forces had carried out joint air attacks with Russia against Islamic State targets in Syria. However, the swift reaction in Tehran to such a potential cooperation between Russia and the United States is indicative of deep Iranian concerns about geopolitical developments concerning the future of Syria. In fact, the alarmed Iranian reaction came at the same time as the warring Syrian parties were negotiating for a political settlement in Astana, Kazakhstan. The Iranian press has been busy in recent days speculating about the geopolitical race for influence in the Middle East and Tehran’s potential to lose out in this many-sided competition. In particular, the strengthening détente between Moscow and Ankara is fast becoming a reason for concern for the Iranians.

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December 02, 2016

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, faces an uphill struggle as he prepares for his reelection bid scheduled for May 2017. It was not supposed to be this way. Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, including the United States, was supposed to seal Rouhani’s second term. After all, the moderate cleric had delivered on his key promise, the lifting of the painful nuclear-related international sanctions. But Rouhani’s hardline opponents inside the Islamic Republic are now increasingly identifying corruption as Rouhani’s Achilles Heel.The same hardliners, however, should not forget that corruption is hardly a trend that only impacts the Rouhani circle. In fact, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has good reasons to fear that the issue of corruption is one of the principal vulnerabilities of the entire regime and moderates and hardliners alike.

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October 08, 2016

For months now, Iraqi forces, joined by U.S. military personnel, have been laying the groundwork for the recapture of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the country’s second-largest metropolis, which fell to Islamic State fighters back in June 2014. The campaign will be a critical test for the Iraqi army and for the fractious central government in Baghdad. To help sort all of this out, the Mideast Memo spoke recently with Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who specializes in Middle East security and Iranian foreign policy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

August 22, 2016

This week’s expected visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Tehran is creating significant buzz in Iranian media. Erdogan’s upcoming visit is broadly assessed against two benchmarks. First, the ability of the Iranian and the Turkish sides to use the occasion to publicly formulate a plan to cooperate toward ending the Syrian civil war. Second, whether the warming in Iranian-Turkish ties will have an impact on Iran’s other regional priorities. On the Syrian question, both countries still have a long way to go. There is a flurry of suggestions in the Iranian press that the coming weeks and months will see Iranian-Turkish cooperation against ISIS in Syria. Nonetheless, the key catalyst for cooperation between Iran and Turkey in Syria is not the fight against ISIS, but a joint interest in keeping Syria’s borders intact. This is above all aimed at any hint of de facto Kurdish independence in Syria. At the same time, Tehran continues to nudge Ankara to reverse its policy on the fate of President Bashar al-Assad. Iran continues to emphasize that Turkish insistence for Assad to go before a political settlement can be reached only limits Ankara’s maneuverability. 

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May 16, 2016

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Iran on May 22 follows his state visits in the past year to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Modi’s visit to Tehran is considered by the Indian foreign policy establishment as a necessary balancing act to safeguard Delhi’s various interests in west Asia that are impacted by the Arab-Iranian rivalry. However, Modi’s trip to Tehran is also aimed to spur specific economic and trade cooperation and particularly joint pan-regional infrastructure projects. An immediate task is to pave the way for India to repay $6.5 billion it owes Iran for crude oil already received. Delhi has for months cited international banking sanctions on Iran as the obstacle, but statements from Tehran suggest this argument has left the Iranians less than convinced.

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May 06, 2016

On paper, Iran should be the one country in west Asia that does its utmost to counter the message of Islamic State (ISIS). The movement, after all, is both vehemently anti-Shia and deeply anti-Iranian in its messaging and worldview. However, Iran’s efforts to combat ISIS have been missing one important element, one that should be a prerequisite to any successful anti-ISIS campaign: taking innovative and meaningful steps to inoculate Iran’s own Sunni minority against ISIS dogma. Time is also a factor. Tehran sees ISIS’ rise in Iraq and Syria as a long-term challenge, but meanwhile, the movement’s emergence to Iran’s east, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, may not be as temporary as many have assumed.

April 26, 2016

The second and final round of Iran’s parliamentary elections will be held this Friday. In the first round, on February 26, the reformists did better than expected and won the highest number of seats in the 290-seat parliament. The reformists are also expected to do well in the contest for the remaining 69 seats, but this will largely depend on turnout. Still, while reformist heavyweights, including former President Mohammad Khatami, are actively urging a big voter turnout, the outcome of the second round is more politically symbolic than a clue to the direction of Iranian domestic politics. Khatami and other supporters of the moderate camp, which is headed by President Hassan Rouhani, are concerned a low turnout will by default give the anti-government candidates the upper hand since the hardliners’ base is much more likely to vote than reformists.

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March 09, 2016

The lifting of nuclear-related international sanctions on Iran has already led to a flurry of high-profile visits by foreign political and commercial dignitaries. But the Latin American countries have not been among the prominent visitors to Tehran. At least not yet. There are a couple of main reasons. First, President Hassan Rouhani is clear-eyed about the role and use of foreign policy as part of his broader presidential agenda. His government is focused on first cultivating strategic allies that can assist Tehran toward two main goals: To help lessen Iran’s diplomatic isolation on the international stage; and to be powerful commercial partners both in terms of investing in Iran’s critical industries – such as oil and gas sector – and as export markets for Iranian goods.

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March 07, 2016

Reports that the Japanese prime minister will visit Iran – the first time in 38 years – is not a surprise. Tokyo hopes that the Iranian market will provide Japanese firms many commercial opportunities. And China, Japan's key Asian rival, is a factor too. China has in recent years emerged as Iran’s top trading partner but the moderate government of President Rouhani in Tehran sees this as unsound over-dependence. Since 2005, Chinese-Iranian trade volumes have reached unprecedented levels. In 2014, the value of Iran’s commercial trade with the world stood at $145 billion. China represented $52.5 billion of the total. Japan wants to help Iran reduce Iran’s dependence on China. For the last year, Tokyo has very carefully monitored the Chinese, the Europeans, the South Koreans returning to Iran to discuss deals. Despite concerns about US reaction, the Japanese no doubt feel that if they wait too long they may fall behind other foreign competitors.

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March 04, 2016

The Turkish Foreign Minister is going to Tehran for two key reasons. First, Davutoglu wants to consult with the Iranians about the situation in Syria. It will not be an easy conversation given that Tehran and Ankara have been engaging in a proxy war in Syria since mid-2011. At the same, Iran and Turkey are big trading partners, which is worth around $20bn dollars a year. That trade needs to be protected, and the Turks also like to be able to compete for the many projects that Iran in the post-sanction era will be offering foreign firms.

March 04, 2016

The generals at the top of the IRGC have for the last 2 years been nervous about the moderate Rouhani government’s agenda for economic reform at home and its plans to attract large amounts of foreign investment. The IRGC leaders evidently feel that the Rouhani team, emboldened by the 26 February election results, will accelerate efforts to reorganize the Iranian economy. This basic fear explains the latest open calls by the likes of Gen. Aziz Jaffari for the Rouhani government to take into account the IRGC colossal interests in the Iranian economy via its control of hundreds of companies.