Vatanka Reports
News and Analysis on the Greater Middle East 
 

Iran and the U.S. were on a collision course as soon as President Donald Trump arrived at the White House in January 2017.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago this week, ties between Western and Eastern Europe were renewed.

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.”

It has now been almost 18 months since Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued 12 demands to Iran and imposed a “maximum pressure” campaign to compel Tehran to change behavior.

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.

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.

Despite the risks of war between the U.S. and Iran, a narrow diplomatic opportunity exists.

On April 8, the Trump administration designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s elite military force, as a foreign terrorist organization. The reaction in Tehran was stern and swift.

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.”

In Washington, President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out U.S. forces from Syria continues to baffle.

On December 7, Nader Uskowi, Ali Alfoneh, and Alex Vatanka addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute.

On Nov. 4, Iran commemorated the 39th anniversary of the day some 400 militant Islamist students seized the U.S. Embassy in downtown Tehran.