ایران

For nearly two weeks, the Persian Gulf island state of Bahrain has experienced near-daily disturbances following government arrests of opposition activists from the majority Shiite community. The timing of the arrests seemed geared toward preempting trouble in advance of the scheduled October 23 parliamentary and municipal elections, which minority Sunni

Patrick Clawson participated in an online forum sponsored by TheAtlantic.com discussing Atlantic magazine's September cover story by Jeffrey Goldberg outlining the prospects and implications of an Israeli strike against Iran. Read contributions by all forum participants here. Over the last year, statements about the Iranian nuclear issue from Israel's leadership

Patrick Clawson participated in an online forum sponsored by TheAtlantic.com discussing Atlantic magazine's September cover story by Jeffrey Goldberg outlining the prospects and implications of an Israeli strike against Iran. Read contributions by all forum participants here. Robin [Wright] is right (forgive the pun), and Jeff[rey Goldberg] is not, about

The media has recently been rife with speculation about the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli preventive strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure -- from former CIA Director Michael Hayden's observation last month that the drift toward military action against Iran appears "inexorable" to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Starting in August, U.S. officials are visiting East Asia, Latin America, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to garner support for tightening Iran sanctions under UN Security Council Resolution 1929. Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department's special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control, and Daniel Glaser, deputy assistant secretary of

On June 10, when the Iranian opposition movement cancelled its planned commemoration of the anniversary of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection, commentators assumed that the Green Movement was finally finished. For months, it had been criticized as lacking strong leadership and for being unable to seriously challenge Iran's entrenched regime. But

Repeated incidents demonstrate that Iran's clerical establishment has been unwilling to defend reform-minded clerics against the regime's attacks. Mehdi Khalaji posits that the Shiite clergy's silence does not stem from indifference but, instead, points to a fundamental tension between Iran's clerical establishment and its theocratic government whose roots date back

On July 9, 2010, Reza Kahlili addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute. Mr. Kahlili is the author of A Time To Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, a memoir that describes his career as a spy for

On July 1, 2010, Stephen Hadley and