Vatanka Reports
News and Analysis on the Greater Middle East 
 

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.

Sanam Vakil and Hossein Rassam convincingly argue that the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will mark a turning point in the Islamic Republic.

On Sunday, six ballistic missiles launched by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched from western Iran, and came crashing down on their targets in Syria’s eastern governorate of Deir Ezzor.

Iran’s presidential vote is now a two-man race.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s re-election is in doubt thanks to an unassuming cleric who only recently entered the public spotlight.

While the worst violence of Syria’s six-year-long war may be over, a credible settlement is still far off.

In a freewheeling press conference on February 16, U.S. President Donald Trump signaled to Iran that the fate of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is uncertain.

The Trump administration is said to be considering listing a powerful state actor in Iran as a terrorist organization.

On January 23, Washington quickly rejected newsthat US forces had carried out joint air attacks with Russia against Islamic State targets in Syria.

The death of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on January 8 marks a major turning point for Iran.

For the generals of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, anti-Americanism is an indispensable component of their worldview.

The last few weeks has seen a flurry of important announcements in Iranian-Indian relations.