Vatanka Reports
News and Analysis on the Greater Middle East

A last chance for reforms squandered: Iranian regime doubles down after 2022 protests
September 14, 2023
History might very well show that the people’s protests that broke out in September 2022 in Iran were the final opportunity for the Islamist regime to change political course. But as the past year has made clear, the regime in Tehran utterly failed to seize the moment.

Iran and the GCC connectivity agenda: Implication for Washington’s Iran policy
June 21, 2023
Iran is possibly the only country that the United Arab Emirates can call an “enemy.” Yet there is another more significant and multilayered side to the UAE-Iran relationship, one that concepts such as political pragmatism or hedging alone cannot explain.

Can the West stop Russian-Iranian convergence?
April 3, 2023
More than a year on from the beginning of the Ukraine war in February 2022, there is no more business as usual for Russia-Iran relations. While bilateral ties are still characterized by an intense focus on security and defense, the two sides are opening multiple new areas of cooperation as well.

Tehran lashes out at Israelis’ support for Iranian protest movement
November 2, 2022
These demonstrations represent perhaps the most sustained domestic challenge to the clerical leadership since 1979, despite efforts by authorities to quell the unrest through mass arrests, beatings and killings, and internet and social media cuts.