Current Analysis Blisters and Sanctions It was February 1987, at the front lines near Khorramshahr, in the south of Iran along the Iraqi border. We had been engaged in heavy battles for over a week. Our troops had penetrated fortified Iraqi positions, and the Iraqis were making us pay: Artillery and mortar shells rained down on us with a Shahriar Khateri, Narges Bajoghli • 6 min read
Current Analysis Six Questions for Fareed Mohamedi It’s like clockwork: When the race for the White House is on, the contestants will promise to make America self-sufficient in energy. Everyone understands this concept to mean less dependence on imported oil from the Middle East, though politicians do not always come out and say so. The implication Chris Toensing • 6 min read
Current Analysis A Separation at Iranian Universities On August 6, with the new academic year approaching, the government-backed Mehr News Agency in Iran posted a bulletin that 36 universities in the country had excluded women from 77 fields of study. The reported restrictions aroused something of an international uproar. Parastou Dokouhaki, Nazanin Shahrokni • 15 min read
Current Analysis Iran in the Campaign's Crosshairs The war of words over Iran's nuclear program keeps expanding. It’s now a multi-sided melee pitting Iran against the West and Israel, Israel against the Obama administration, Mitt Romney against Barack Obama, and neo-conservatives like William Kristol against the rest of the US foreign policy establi Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis To Save Syria, Work with Russia and Iran As the violence intensifies in Syria, external powers, including the United States, are embracing increasingly belligerent positions. Indeed, in recent days the United States and Turkey have announced plans to study a no-fly zone after calls by many American commentators for a more direct military r Aziz Rana, Aslı Bâli • 3 min read
Current Analysis "Iran Will Require Assurances" Hossein Mousavian has served as visiting research scholar at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security from 2009 to the present. Prior to this position, he held numerous positions in the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including director-general of its West Europe department Aslı Bâli • 30 min read
Current Analysis Iranian Cyber-Struggles From the Green Movement in Iran in 2009 through the Arab revolts that began in 2011, social media have held center stage in coverage of popular protest in the Middle East. Though the first flush of overwrought enthusiasm is long past, there is consensus that Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 appli Narges Bajoghli • 9 min read
Current Analysis Threat Inflation via Memory Lane In 2005, Yale professor Philip Smith published a fascinating book Why War? to examine the “cultural logic” underpinning three major Middle East conflicts involving Western democracies -- the 1956 tripartite aggression in Suez, the 1991 Gulf war and the 2003 Iraq war. Smith’s thesis is that, while “hard” geopolitical factors Chris Toensing • 4 min read
Current Analysis War Drums and Obama For the last three weeks or so, liberal commentators have repeatedly insisted that the Obama administration bears little to no responsibility for the ever louder beating of the Iran war drums. Whatever such sounds the White House makes are just pre-election theater necessitated by Republican attacks, they say, or Chris Toensing • 4 min read
Current Analysis Strategic Commodity 201 Goodness! Look at this marxisant rubbish: Chris Toensing • 3 min read
Current Analysis Slouching Toward a Hot War The odd, improbable Manssor Arbabsiar story [http://www.merip.org/mero/mero110311] is back, in prepared Congressional testimony [http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iran-is-prepared-to-launch-terrorist-attacks-in-us-intelligence-report-finds/2012/01/30/gIQACwGweQ_story.html] by Dir Chris Toensing • 2 min read
Current Analysis A Not So Distant Mirror At the risk of stating the obvious, there are eerie and multiplying parallels between the long lead-up to the 2003 Iraq war and what passes for debate on what to do about the Iranian nuclear research program. Chris Toensing • 3 min read
