Iran’s House of Cards
The Islamic Republic’s succession games are just getting started.
Muhammad Khatami
Mass Boycott by Voters Persists as Masoud Pezeshkian Wins Iran Presidential Election
At least 50 percent of Iranian voters boycotted the second round of the Islamic Republic’s presidential election on July 5, which resulted in a victory for Masoud Pezeshkian, touted...
Flash Briefs
The Death of Iran’s President Does Not Bode Well
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has not always seen eye to eye with his country’s presidents. Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani nudged the Islamic Republic too close to the West for the supreme leader’s...
Op-eds
Forget the Bomb and Help Iranians Fight Their Regime
All the other options have failed.
Op-eds
Waiting for Thermidor: America’s Foreign Policy Towards Iran
The Islamic Republic of Iran may be on an accelerated schedule for revolutionary decay, at least if compared to the USSR.
Op-eds
Iran’s Hard-Liners Believe They’re Winning on Nuclear Weapons
In the Tehran echo chamber, Putin’s war is another indication of the cost of trusting America.
Op-eds
The Post-Post-JCPOA World
Is a nuclear Iran something Republicans must now simply accept?
Op-eds
Iran Won’t Stop Until It Has a Nuclear Weapon
Khamenei and his regime haven’t gone to all this trouble merely to become a ‘threshold state.’
Op-eds
Biden Needs an Effective—and Coercive— Iran Strategy
The Biden administration seems to be on the wrong track. No strategy against the Islamic Republic of Iran can be effective without sustained coercive pressure. Going back in time, the situation is reminiscent...
Op-eds
A Breakout Moment for a New Approach to Iran
Neither arms control nor military force is realistic. What would a more practical policy look like?
Op-eds
Hangman-in-chief
Iranian presidential elections have rarely mattered. Both the past victory of the so-called reformists and now the restoration of a tailor made presidency to consolidate the regime, portray something similar...
Op-eds
Germany needs to confront Iranian regime’s antisemitism
Berlin should take the lead in punishing the Islamic republic's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with economic sanctions and a cessation of diplomatic relations until Tehran recognizes Israel's right to exist.
Op-eds
In Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s clerics have groomed and promoted their ruthless enforcer
This month, Iran held the most boring — and most consequential — presidential election in its history. Boring because the election was rigged virtually from the start. What made it consequential is...
Op-eds
Khamenei is Iran’s most important voter, and he wants more extremism, not less
Elections have consequences, even in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nobody knows this better than Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the country’s most powerful person and most important “voter.” Through...
Op-eds
The IRGC runs for high office in Tehran
It’s not every day that a former hostage-taker and a man essential to the founding of a designated terrorist organization throws his hat into the ring for president, not even in the Islamic Republic of...
Op-eds
Iran’s Parliament Chooses Khamenei Loyalist as Speaker
Iran’s parliament on Thursday chose Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf as its new speaker, replacing Ali Larijani, who had held the post since 2008. A former air force commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard...
Policy Briefs
Iran’s new push to erase its millennia of Jewish history
The story of the biblical queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai is among the most dramatic and moving in the Old Testament: After the pair learn of a plot to destroy the Jews hatched by the evil vizier...
Op-eds
The Next Iranian Revolution
Why Washington Should Seek Regime Change in Tehran
Op-eds
The Islamic Revolution vs. Donald Trump
Iran and Ayatollah Khamenei are more influential today than at any time since 1979.
Op-eds
The Preeminent Challenge
The biggest foreign-policy challenge before Donald Trump isn’t North Korea, where the usual pattern of diplomacy and deception persists. Nor is it Russia; it doesn’t have the mus...